Hello, I am Erin Mariah Murphy, and my two aviation Meets Animal Rescue children's books are Halfway Home and Daring Dexter.

Thanks, Aaron, for joining us today on the Adventures in the heart of Children's book authors.

I really appreciate you spending some time with us.

Yes.

I'm glad we were able to schedule so quickly.

I was anxious to do the interview with you.

Fantastic.

So I just want to remind the audience a little bit, the listening audience, that Aaron, spectacular all the things that you're doing.

Aaron's a commercial pilot and also volunteers for the spca and.

And we're and is involved through aviation in helping animal adoption.

We'll get into talking about that.

And on top of that, she's a children's book author.

Aaron, I.

I'd love to talk to you about the inspiration behind your books and the origin story.

Tell us a little bit about the inspiration behind your first book, Halfway Home.

Yes, the first book, Halfway Home, features my rescue dog, Z.

I began volunteering at my local SSBCA in about 2000, and I volunteered there for several years before we adopted.

My husband is also an airline pilot.

I fly for United Airlines out of Newark, New Jersey.

My husband flies for American Airlines out of one year junior on the totem pole, you don't have the best flying schedule.

For me, my experience, it took a good decade to be able to have more of a stabilized schedule, and then I moved up in status level as a volunteer.

So I was invited to take animals home for a night.

And you're given a questionnaire and you gather more information about these animals so the SBCA can use that to match them up with the right family.

As soon as I started to do that, I brought home Zeke.

At the time, he was Homer.

He wasn't in our house more than 10 minutes.

My husband said, I know this is nuts, but I think we should keep him.

So fast forward to us adopting him and then really fast forward to our very uncomfortable pandemic days.

I was grounded.

I wasn't flying.

So during that time, I had always done, as a family, a lot of hiking with our dogs.

And I was really doing it during that time when I wasn't flying.

I can't really tell you why, but I started to just think about his story and I started to take writing courses during my time that I was brown in.

And that was the very beginning for me, and I didn't know where I wanted it to go.

Writing courses, were those writing courses in general or was it specific to children's book writing?

Tell us a little bit about that sure.

It was specific to children's book writing.

My dog Zeke has a face that I described that only a mother can love.

He has a very bold underbite.

And I just really him as being like a really great children's book character.

And then he was a really nervous and anxious guy and I thought that could be tied into his story that may be able to help children and young people coming of age that kind of struggle with those things.

So it was.

It was.

The company that I studied with was called Journey to Kidlit.

And I did go on traditional submissions.

And I'm green.

I don't know anything about publishing.

And I equate it to the getting higher down in a major airline.

It's like a decade, in my opinion.

There are some people who really hit it out of the park and there are a couple pilots that do that too.

And I always advise people to, when I say that, think about the image of the author on the back of most of your books.

Do they look like.

Do they look young?

No.

Right.

They look seasoned.

Reality set in.

I booked into hybrid publishing.

The neat thing about what you just said is I co authored our book called the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear with my granddaughter.

Oh, that's right.

So I actually got to put a younger face on the book.

It's like grammar.

There's an exception to every rule, right?

Absolutely.

She keeps me young at heart.

So you got yourself involved.

You took some writing lessons.

It started percolating in your mind.

You were out with Zeke and tell us how that all.

Did you have a eureka moment or did it just evolve into a children's book?

The actual idea of writing a book was a eureka moment.

I felt like I just pulled it out of left field and I did.

However, the evolution of it was like a lot of children's book authors, I was attracted to the playful language.

And this might have been like a coping mechanism for what we were all going through at that time.

Like, I wanted something light and playful, so I went with a rhyme.

I had a rhyme story.

And so when I first started to do my one on one critiques, the two things pivotal came from my critiques, which if you haven't done them before, they're.

Especially someone who's green.

It's a little sensitive of an experience because you're exposing this idea.

You have no idea if it's how it's going to be received.

And then you have all that inhibition and then someone's telling you something's wrong with it.

So you have to just be able to be open to that.

I did open up to that.

And my experience was the two main takeaways were.

She said, jimmy, why did you write it in rhyme?

And I just said, I don't know.

I just thought most children's books are in rhyme and they're playful.

And she said, okay, if you want to go this avenue, you can, but the pitfall is in your head.

You will force it.

You will force the number of beats and syllables to make it happen for your story.

If you want to learn the skill set, it's very much like being a musician who develops a harmony and a melody, and there are actual rules around it.

And I was like, okay.

And I felt intimidated.

She goes, my suggestion would be go rewrite the whole thing into dialogue.

Now, that was the first major rewrite I did.

And I thought I was, like, aghast.

Like, what?

Rewrite it?

That I was going to rewrite the whole.

I rewrote the whole thing probably like four times halfway home.

And then the second part of the critique that she did with me, she criticized me on, and not in a bad way.

I received it.

She said, so I just want you to invite this thought in.

If you are someone who likes animals and animal rescue and adoption in particular, what makes your book stand out?

Because right now, there's nothing wrong with it.

It's fine.

It's cute.

Zeke is a adorable character, and I could see him going to illustration in a fun way.

And at this point, I had nothing to do with aviation in the book.

It was just Zeke.

And I was not volunteering in that capacity.

So I knew a little bit about animal air rescue.

So the way she posed it to me was this.

She said, if I'm a person who likes animal books, and specifically dog rescue in this case, and I have five books on my shelf about animal rescue, why am I going to buy yours?

Why am I going to buy a sixth one?

Or am I going to pick it up and say, oh, this is really cute, But, I mean, I already have it.

And I mean, that real.

I received that.

I was like, okay.

So then I started to think about the animal transports that I loosely heard about throughout my career.

Next thing I knew, I was on the phone with the manager at the sbca.

I loosely heard about animal transports.

They're clueless on how the magnitude of which they operate.

I began volunteering, and once I did my very first animal rescue flight, not as a pilot.

I'm just on the ground receiving the animals off the aircraft, getting them set on the shelter for check in and then ready for adoption.

I knew nothing about it, really.

I just, like I said, I just knew a little bit of hear.

Say, was that the trigger for the aha moment or when did that come?

That was it.

Literally, when I left after volunteering for my first animal rescue flight, I honestly, my thought was, what was that?

Literally, as I shut the car door, I thought, this is incredible.

I just saw 200 dogs and cats unloaded off of an aircraft way larger than I was anticipating.

And just on such a grandiose scale.

And on the way home, I thought, I have to rewrite Halfway Home again.

It's interesting you should say that because my wife and I watch on CBS Sunday, it's called Sunday Morning.

I don't know if you'd ever watch that show.

And they actually had.

I don't, I can't remember because it's probably a couple of years now, but they had a story on a pilot who was doing that.

And my wife and I thought, wow, this is incredible.

I just think it's such a less popular side of aviation and animal rescue.

It gets glossed over, or at least it has for me.

I mean, I started.

I grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and I've been flying since I was 14 years old.

Even me, I had no idea.

And so when I go on trips at United, say we're doing a long haul trip all the way across the Atlantic to somewhere in the Far east, and we chat and all this, I tell them about my books and I tell them about the animal air rescue.

Nobody has any idea this is happening, but it is happening at a really pretty grand scale.

I rewrote Halfway Home and so that the role that aviation has in animal adoptions is the secondary portion of the story.

The dog Zeke, struggling to get adopted is the primary story.

And then when I burned my second book, Daring Dexter, it's more pronounced in there.

And then I also sought copyright approval from three of the larger air animal air rescues in the United States to use their logo and their exact aircraft with their logo in the book.

Wow.

Was just my jumping point.

And then Daring Dexter is a little bit more factual because I gained knowledge that I wanted to share.

And you know what?

I love that.

Again, for people aspiring authors who are listening in, it's incredible.

You're the first children's book author that I've interviewed that has two books.

Every children's book author I've interviewed so far has one book and they have a second book coming out soon.

It's neat to have you on the show and talk about.

Here's how I started my first book and this is what happened with my second book.

Just how it evolved for you.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

It definitely has evolved.

And then I.

My first edition books, I felt.

I just felt excited.

So excited that an actual book came to fruition.

I did continue doing educational courses after that.

I have done some workshop educational stuff with Gotham writers.

They're based in New York City.

Okay.

They have really affordable, you know, depending on your budget, but within a couple hundred dollars of workshops where you can learn and branch off.

And they also have great critique services too, if someone is listening and looking for that.

I was always taken back on the cost of those things.

However, I don't regret it.

I think having a really great editor and someone to help you step outside yourself.

Like that very first critique I got me, not only got me to write about aviation in my books, but it got me to volunteer in Animal Air Rescue.

Right.

Just insert myself.

And it has blossomed in my life.

And so many avenues be open to a critique.

Absolutely.

And that's the neat thing about it is, as you've mentioned, how it expands.

Where you started your first book.

You didn't even have aviation as a thought.

And then all of a sudden with somebody making some suggestions.

I like to call them suggestions versus critique.

Critique always sounds so negative.

People have a lot of nice suggestions that kind of motivate you.

Right.

And that's what happens in your case.

Yes.

So just tell us a little bit more about your from your first book to your second book.

What was the biggest single difference in the development of the second book?

The second book felt more comfortable because I used the same illustrator in the same hybrid publishing house.

So I knew them and they knew me and that felt good and.

Right.

So I was comfortable with that.

The challenge that I started to come across with the second book is, I guess the best way to say it is just to be really honest.

I felt like I got better as a writer and I wanted to change things in my first book.

So there is another evolution.

I just.

I could critique or give notes or suggestions to myself on my first book.

And that started to really gnaw at my craw a little bit.

I don't know, like you.

You hear something.

So an honest note, we'll say instead of critique.

Someone told me about Halfway Home, which I did receive, and I was a little frustrated when I first heard it because, you know, being a pilot, I tend to have a really pragmatic mind and so my books I like.

I could never write a magical book.

I mean, I little short stories that are magical, that are just for me, but I mean, they stink.

But it's just for fun.

If I'm on a layover, I'll just write a silly story.

That's what I'm trying to share with the audience is everybody, each of us as a children's book author has our own techniques and some of them are accidental.

I'll give you prime examples.

I, my, myself and my five grandchildren, we've written 38 books in our book series, the Adventures of Caboose, the Rocky Mountain Bear.

It's not inexpensive to bring a book to market, to publish a book, to market a book.

So one thing that we decided to do was do they still had their young voices was to do audiobooks of each of the story.

So when we actually started doing the audiobooks, my grandchildren were great because sometimes the words weren't right for their age category.

So they were the editors.

One of the things that I would offer out to the aspiring authors is have the children who are in your target range for who you would like to read the book actually read your story in advance the draft.

And you can learn a lot from that.

Anyways, it's interesting how you came about it and how you're developing.

I got connected to.

Through to a group of authors that are all in aviation.

So ever in all realms of aviation.

And so there is a woman, her name is Liz Booker.

She.

Her website is literary avh.com she has every genre of a book primarily featuring some character in.

There is a woman pilot.

But she had.

She's really open to sharing all books in general.

So I did a podcast interview with her and at the end of it again, she said to me, so Erin, I also have.

So she's a retired Coast Guard helicopter pilot and now she's just really fixated on education and book promotion and all genres of aviation.

So she said, I just want.

I also have a literary degree, Aaron.

And I just wanted to share a note with you about halfway home.

And I was like, okay.

She said, I don't think your character Zeke has enough agency.

And then I pushed back on that.

I said rescue dogs really don't have agency.

They're in a shelter and kind of whatever's going to shake out is really totally out of their control.

But again, that was like my pragmatic brain.

She doesn't understand that nobody really insightful might they try.

But like they just.

Because, you know, you just.

I.

You still need to see something, some moment where he took charge of the situation and then helped, at least had a role in his life.

Turning around and getting adopted.

First edition of Halfway Home.

No one else has said anything to me about it.

She is the only one and I do appreciate her saying that.

So I sat with that for to give other authors.

If you're doing any kind of rewriting or another edition over a year and I would literally be in like the grocery store, not even thinking about it, and it would just pop in my head.

I'm like, I got to do something about that.

What I'd like to talk to you about also is that I found that there's generally three types of ways to publish.

There's self publishing, there's hybrid publishing, which you've talked about, and then there's traditional publishing.

So tell us why you lean towards hybrid publishing versus traditional.

You did mention a little bit about traditional or self publishing.

So tell us a little bit about why hybrid.

I liked hybrid because I still was able to weigh in on the illustrations and the text, but I was still guided.

Yes.

No, that's probably not in your best interest.

I could ultimately override them and say, I still want to do X, Y and Z.

But so like a small example would be for someone who's just starting out for me in what I've learned, there's a lot of language around word count of a picture book.

Right.

The second I open up a book, I can tell if it was totally self published without any editorial, which is fine.

You have a passion project and you just love it and your community loves it.

Great.

That's awesome.

Again, because I'm a little pragmatic.

I was like.

But now that I've taken these courses, I've learned the structure of how a children's book and the rule of three and the hero's journey and a climax and a win, a partial win and then another win guy on the plot structure.

I couldn't really let go of that.

I wanted to make sure someone kept me in check with that because I was new.

So I did not do a vanity publish hybrid publisher, which you can just submit your file and they will maybe run it through an editor in a copywriter and then have it ready to go.

Like I said, it really took some decent critiques on it.

So I was.

I needed the guidance for the page layout.

I had no idea how to do that.

Even as far as, like, where the text falls next to what illustration.

I did not have that skillset developed at all.

Even now I have Branched out.

I'll get there.

I have branched off from my hobby publishing house.

But things that made me have a visceral uncomfortable reaction if someone says where do you get an ISBN meltdown?

In my head.

How do you get a barcode?

I don't know.

I'm terrified.

And it wanted to so I wanted someone to help me do that.

Everyone says to you is your book on Amazon and somehow if you say yes then you're credible how that happens?

I wanted nothing to do with it, so I just was green.

I didn't know how to do any of that.

So once I went through Daring Dexter, two things happened and I let the first one slide and it's really nothing negative about the hybrid house that I published with.

I they have not had good luck with their printing houses.

I have had a ton of printing errors, as in like hundreds of books that I now have to take pictures of and prove there's an error.

Are you doing print on demand and also quantity printing?

Are you doing both?

I order, yeah, I do print on demand.

If anyone orders from Amazon and such that just whatever book they print is what they will get.

I, I'm not totally wild about that quality.

It's okay.

And I understand it's a kid's book.

It's going to get drawn in and sat on and lost and okay.

But just for me, I just really like to have to give a nice presentation at the start.

And so I do I so I the hybrid house also order.

I order my own stock here at my house and then that's where you order from my website and that's where the offering is for custom packaging and messaging and things like that that I really take or pride in.

So when I was having these printing issues, they circ even though they made a change to the printing house, it did surface again with Daring Dexter.

So I started to think all the things that I did not want to learn.

The ISBN, the barcode, and having some more flexibility that invited oh then if you do that Aaron, you can make those changes in halfway home that you want because you'll have the file, you can re edit it, you can do as you want.

So that all just married up at this happened to marry up at the same time.

So I did exit my hybrid publishing house and I am slowly self publishing my second editions.

It's interesting you should say that because I know what you said about Amazon and the printing quality but I have to tell you, I of course gone through Amazon and I've also gone through ingramsparks to Reach other online book retailers like Barnes and Noble.

But what I found is we get just a ton of compliments on the printing of our book through Amazon to do with geographically.

I have one friend in Wisconsin, she's actually a retired Thunderbird pilot, and she.

She had to return thousands of books, and they were all from hunger.

And another friend of ours, she has an adult book about the women air force service pilots and a children's book.

She lived down in Maryland.

She said, I've had over like the last four years.

I've had to return like two books.

Interesting.

I just don't know.

But I do wish someone kind of told me a little bit about that.

That's why I like to share it.

Because, like, the.

For when it first happened, I was embarrassed and I thought someone thought I had a horrible product.

Right.

And, oh, why would you order that?

But secondly, it's out of the author's control a little.

You know, I mean, these things do happen.

And I equate it to, like, when you buy anything in bulk, like, if you go to the Gap, they have the clearance rack with.

With the weird sweater happen.

So if I ordered like 10,000 books and like 300 of them were terrible, that's really not the end of the world.

But it just gets frustrating when you're only ordering like 500 or so and you have to print 200.

It's something to consider if you don't want to play that game.

You can just do the print on demand.

But I just enjoy having the books and sending them out on my purse from my own personal space.

And I let sign.

And just so you know, as a self publisher, that's what we do.

That's the one thing that I loved, is having that control over making changes if we wanted to.

A prime example, and I've talked about this a couple of times now on our podcast shows, is I heard about adding a book plate to the front of your book, and I didn't even know what the heck that was, but it was a simple thing.

Generally, children's books are bought as gifts.

So they're bought by the parent, the grandparent, a family or friend.

And so they always say people want either the author to write a message, if they can, to the child, or the parent or grandparent wants to write a message to the child.

So I ended up in our first book.

I just want to show you in our first book, right at the front.

It's just the title of our book.

Yes.

Okay.

And then somebody gave me this idea about the book plate.

And so the nice thing about it is now.

Oh yeah.

So it says this book belongs to.

And then you can just write a.

A nice message in there.

It was nice because we self publish.

I made the change within a week that I turned it around and had it uploaded into ingramsparks and into Amazon.

Just that quick.

Exactly.

And to give our listeners a perspective, there's one dog in halfway home and all the dogs, end of story, are dogs in our life or in our family.

And I have no idea what happened because I know I approved the original script.

And so the dog's name is Millie.

M I L I E.

And when I opened up the book, I don't know when this happened.

It was M I L Y.

So no, this is like my sister in law's dog though.

And I know it's just a story and I know it just.

You can fill in all the.

No one knows.

And it's just.

But it bothered me.

This is our dog and I wanted her names.

Right?

Absolutely.

And my hybrid publisher now because I had all that support, which was great and I paid for it, but you pay for it.

So when I said I would like this to be changed for the next round of printing.

Now hold onto your hat, it's $500 now.

Why is it $500?

Because we have to contract the illustrator.

The page layout person has to reapprove it.

The copyright folks need to look at it one more time and all those people need to get paid for their time.

That is also what started to nudge me towards the self publishing.

I just for me personally, mathematically the hybrid does serve for two books.

After two books you're just hemorrhaging money.

Unless you're selling like gangbusters.

But I'm not.

I just moderately sell.

Right.

Which is what makes I still.

I'm flying.

And when I come home, if I have a handful of book orders to do, that's great for me.

I don't want to happen 100%.

So let's pick up on that for a moment because you.

You were talking about and I'm really curious about this is second editions.

Tell the everybody what that is and what's different from a first edition to the second edition.

So I did a lot of research on this because I wasn't sure if I was just going to say I'm relaunching or I'm re releasing or am I making a second edition.

So I literally looked up even like tutorial videos on YouTube from professionals to see what they characterize as second edition.

So second edition is characterized by major illustration and text changes.

So I really did do that.

So in Halfway Home, I the pilot in that storyline is not the main character.

Zeke the dog is.

However, she is a woman pilot in there.

And primarily because I got stuck so connected to other authors in aviation, they are all elevating pilots in general.

Doesn't matter the gender.

But I just thought I should highlight that a little more.

And then a little bit more thought came into it and I thought I'm not going to rewrite the whole story that all of a sudden this woman pilot is the main character in Zeke is secondary.

But what can I do?

I thought maybe I can get a nice picture of myself in my uniform in my bio and that will just support the aviation and pilot element a little more like through myself as a and a description of myself.

All of that is to say is I, without knowing this was going to happen in 2023, I was invited to be a part of a coffee table book about people and their dogs.

And so I did a photo shoot for it and I ended up with these like gorgeous photos of me and my dogs in my uniform.

And then that was when the wheels were turning.

I was leaving my hybrid house.

So I redesigned my whole entire bio page and there's probably maybe 10 sentences that I completely changed that specifically elevate the pilot.

Maeve is what we call her.

So in the story I just called her Maeve and I just something as simple as calling her pilot Maeve all the time.

Everyone's oh yeah, oh, she is flying.

Oh yeah.

I see her in the illustration instead of just glossing over it.

Well, any major text in illustration changes, particularly a cover change.

And then both of my books I added subtitles.

And the reason behind the subtitles is two things.

It can those trigger words can help you get a little bit more traction on Amazon and ingramsparks when people are searching.

Also, just like you were saying and myself saying, not everyone really knows a whole lot about what animal air rescue is.

And that was a.

A reaction I saw for people that I thought I could when I was marinating.

Geez, I can improve upon Halfway Home I would see them look at the book and they're looking at a woman and a dog in like an abandoned house in a plane.

And with no subtitle, they didn't have context for what was happening.

Now I did because I'm doing all this volunteer work and so my volunteer pals but anyone outside of that realm had no I didn't really immediately link all the elements together in the sometime.

So do, do you have to change the ISBN?

Yes, I did.

Okay, so I changed got new ISB.

I.

I faced my demons, I tackled the ISBNs and I tackled the barcodes.

And then I did find another gentleman who I, you know, it took me this long in the podcast to bring him up, but he really didn't come into my life till the second edition.

So his name is Nathan and he runs a company called Boki B A B O K Y do he will do anything from copywriting to full plate page layouts to audiobooks, ebooks, whatever it is that your heart desires.

He is not a hybrid publishing house.

He is just provides service if you need help with an illustrator.

He has just been.

He is a very calm demeanored, intelligent guy.

So whenever I started to have one of these panics, I would reach out to him and tell him perspective.

I paid Tom $10,000 for my hybrid publishing journal, Nathan.

Now that was probably over.

So the contract is for a year now and they will give you continued support throughout your public even after your book is published.

But this gentleman, Nathan, four hours of his time, 220.

Like anything, it doesn't matter what it is, he just charges by his time, whether it's helping you with your ISBN or what have you.

So I leaned on him a lot with my second editions and I'm so proud of him.

I'm glad you mentioned that.

And we'll definitely link to all of this in the show notes, but thank you for sharing that because I haven't had quite the same journey as you as a self publisher, but we have actually put a team together almost by accident and so that team is serving us a la carte like you're saying.

And the nice thing about when I say a la carte, we're just paying for each job as it comes up and we've now got a big enough team that we know who to go to.

For example, the book plate I just showed you, I have a.

It's not my illustrator that did the book plate.

It's actually I have a graphics person who helped me do the layout of the book and he was able to do that.

What's interesting is you start to build these resources like you said, when you go through the first book or the second book and you get more comfortable and then you start developing these different resources.

So thank you for sharing that.

Oh yeah, and I like to share the numbers too because when I first heard $10,000 I almost fell off my chair Again though.

But if I was an illustrator.

Now I'm going to work with you for the next six months.

Yeah, I want $2,500.

I'm giving you six months of work here and I'm free life.

So all the numbers are huge.

The page layout design person having self published and dabbled with InDesign and Adobe, I mean, I was like sweating trying to figure that out.

That is not easy.

And then of course you have your printing costs for at least your first round of books and etc.

So I again, I mean, I had to sit with the, with all the costs for, for some time and everybody does it a little bit differently.

But so for me, in the beginning all of that made sense until it didn't make sense anymore.

And then now the a la carte services are serving me perfectly.

I want everybody to understand that you can get illustrators a la carte too.

You don't have to come up with the whole, as Aaron talked about, you don't have to come up with the whole $2,500 at once.

Illustrators will work with you.

If you say, I need two or three illustrations and then I gotta take a break because I gotta go work part time at McDonald's or whatever to make enough money to pay for the next illustration, there's a lot of great illustrators that'll do that with you.

Absolutely.

And then just for folks to, you know, when I was first listening to people share about things like this when I was starting out, I'm like, yeah, but how do you know these people?

How does it work?

Just keep asking.

I honed in on, I really like to share other people's books as much as mine.

And the way that I do that is when I do, I do it a couple ways.

But one of the most popular ways and frequent ways that I do it is whenever I do a book event, I reach out to other people that I'm following on Instagram and whose books I have and that I really enjoyed, or if they're dog or aviation Saint.

I definitely hone in on that to try to keep some consistency with my events.

But I say, hey, do you want to send me one or two of your books?

And then I offer at my event, purchase my book.

And then I have a little free library and you can choose any one of these for free.

And I invite them to include their business card or discount code for their website.

Another way that I've done that is some folks get send me like a stack like 10 to 20 books and then they just print out something on Canva.

That includes a bit about them, their books, and the QR code for their Venmo.

So when I'm at the event, I just monitor that their Venmo goes through, and then I don't even have to deal with the money, but I'm like, selling on their behalf a little.

Nice.

But the books that I had become attracted to, when I knew that I wanted to leave my hybrid house and I wanted to see print and distribution on my own because that was my Achilles heel, I just started to really look at the authors whose books I really liked, and I thought they were a nice quality.

So I started to.

You didn't cut through.

What a great idea.

Yeah.

I was like, okay, I like this.

This looks great.

What did you do and how did you do?

And you can get sense of people's demographic a little.

Like, you might be in the same financial wheelhouse as them, or it looks like they did it way smarter than you.

Right.

Oh, wow.

You did this on your own.

So for me, when I started to have a little conversation with myself when I was having these printing problems, I thought, the amount of time that I'm putting into reshipping these back and submitting for new ones, I could just learn how to self publish and just do this on my own again.

To circle back to Nathan from bubuki, I am ordering from China, and I know that's a hot topic, but I am making the leap.

I done four printing houses in the United States and every one of them gave me problem.

So I'm making the leap and I'm doing them from China.

However, now, some folks who do that, you deal directly with China, so there's some challenges with time zone and language barrier.

Most people seem to motor through that just fine.

However, Nathan provides as a liaison for that, so he's ordering it for me and submitting the files for me.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So, I mean, if you want someone to still do it for you, you'll have the final approval.

And then he's super reassuring too, just like yourself.

You were saying, like, if you get your first order prints and there's still something that's off or God forbid, you missed a period, like, you don't need to go up the deep end.

We'll fix it and we'll do it for the next batch.

It's just like, really inviting for us.

I'd like to jump into your website.

Of course.

I've been on your website.

I have it in front of me, and I like how you've incorporated yourself in it, which is fantastic.

It's so fun and with the dogs and everything like that.

So again, when we first started and we wrote our first book, we were just about ready to bring it to market and somebody said, oh, have you got a home for your book?

And I said, what do you mean a home for our book?

They said, have you got a website?

And I said, oh no, I don't have a website.

So we ended up developing our website after we launched our book.

So tell us your story about your website and did you launch it before your book?

After your book?

And what changes have you made to your website as you moved into your second book?

Okay, so the first is I was encouraged through my hybrid publishing house to create a website.

And so the way my hybrid publishing house worked, which I liked, we did some zoom meetings like this and they would say, hey, okay, so you're three months out from your launch.

This is a checklist of things that you might want to start considering doing.

You can do or not do whatever you want.

But we would recommend a website creating a launch team for the day and you know, trying to get as many reviews and other people to share about your book so it's not just all on you, etc.

I, I reached out to a friend of mine who I knew was an author, a completely different other genre and she told me who she had to help for her website.

So I knew I needed help.

I.

It was the same thing with the hybrid house.

At this point I'm back to flying out of.

I'm out of the COVID bubble and I thought there's no way I can sustain traveling and doing this website.

No, that's just me, right?

Tons of other author pilots that do it all.

But I also like sanity.

So I like to read and I like to relax and I like to hike with my dogs.

I try to balance all that and I just knew that it would afford me time.

I reached out to a woman who does website design and we did a lot of zoom meetings like this and she showed me how to do things.

However, do not take that as Erin knows what she's doing on her website because every time I have to do something, it's the same feeling as the ISBN and the barcodes.

I do have angst about it.

I ultimately get it done.

It does take me a bananas amount of time to do it.

I'm not efficient at it, so I don't really like it.

And in fact, when I get my.

So my second edition books will be available towards the end of February.

So this Week is on my to do list to tackle some things about my website and some critiques I have for myself.

I feel like I have too many offerings.

Like I just want to offer.

I'm like.

And even my print form, I just want hardcover books.

And I know there's a lot of conversation about having some soft covers.

I do have the halfway home coloring book that also has the story text in it and that's my soft cover.

And I do have some leftover first edition soft covers.

But I just want the book and then the option.

I'm not going to upsell a charge anymore for signed copies and all honesty, I do that anyway.

I put a lot of.

In lack of a better word, I do put a lot of love and effort into my packaging and my presentation.

When people order from my website that it doesn't really matter if you want it signed, I'll just.

I'm just going to streamline it for sure.

Because sometimes I've seen people go on and they do get a little confused.

Wait, what book is this?

And this is a soft cover.

Okay, this is soft cover.

Hard.

This is a signed one.

It's just like too many options.

And we live in such a 32nd world, right?

We're all 30 seconds that no one really outside of someone like yourself who's going to do a podcast.

Most of us don't really comb over each other's websites like that anymore.

I just don't think that's how it's communicated.

So streamline mine.

Tell us because you said you were talking about your offerings and I want to share this with people is because some authors that I've interviewed, they've just had a straight website.

They don't have a store like you have a store on your website.

But I've also interviewed a couple authors who actually after I started reaching out to them, they went from no store to a store.

So tell us a little bit, because you talked about the offerings and I noticed you have a fairly comprehensive.

So tell us a little bit about that.

That really is credited to the person who I have helped move my website.

When I really get stuck or stumped, I will probably pay her.

It's like an a la carte thing.

I might pay her two hours and say I'm looking to have X, Y and Z offered and just cleaned up.

But the way she has it set up now in the bookstore, I can go in.

So I use Squarespace to give folks a point of reference here.

So I go on to spare Squarespace and then I checked on Clicked on website and then I'm going to go to my bookstore and I'm going to hit edit.

And then in there it had all my items.

So right now I'm probably going to go in and you can either make them live or hide some of your items.

I'm probably going to hide my unsigned copies.

I'm just going to make everything a signed copy available option.

So that way that will, for those who don't know that from on my Squarespace website, it'll give the pop up that says, hey, do you want to have this signed to a specific individual.

That'S coming directly from you?

Correct.

Yeah.

The other merchandise that you have on your website, like I notice you have a cool Facebook cap and stuff like that.

Now how is that getting to the consumer?

Same.

I ship it.

I just like those hats are ordered from.

There's a local company here in Pennsylvania that I met from a networking.

And then the other ones, they're just, I just ordered them on Vistaprint.

So you never thought about Printful or Spotify, Shopify those services.

And I guess the only reason why is because those hats are new within the last couple months on there.

And so I don't think they've gotten enough traction yet.

So once I start seeing them go and, and plus once I, if, and once I start to feel overwhelmed shipping them from home, I might look into that.

But at the moment I don't mind shipping.

It's okay.

You're, you're actually buying the merchandise.

I am.

Wholesale.

And then you're shipping it out as the orders come in.

Correct.

Okay.

Okay, great.

Good to know.

And again to the listeners, there's all kinds of different options and you've got Shopify, you've got Printful, you've got exactly what Aaron's doing.

It's interesting how it develops.

Yes.

And what I also like about just having my own stock too is I, in my mind those hats are a little bit new and I'm going to test them out a little bit more this spring.

I have some events coming up to support my second editions.

I just like to sell them in, in person and that deletes the whole shipping information.

And people like to get their hands on them a little bit.

I do too.

I order things online all the time.

And then I've been also like, geez, I really should have looked at this first.

And if you can get things in people's hands too, it equates to a better chance of a sell rather than just like a picture of a hat.

I'm also interested.

I know you've talked about Zeke, I know you've talked about volunteering through the SPCA and then eventually helping unload the dogs and cats.

Is there other motivation in your life that is there like a person that motivated you to be, to want to be a children's book author or was there an event or have you already described that?

I guess it would really just be the dogs.

I mean it's silly and kind of cliche.

Like everyone said who rescued who and they really have become such an integral role in my husband's life.

And it had just adopting them lent itself to me volunteering more.

And then we started to foster dogs in between Zeke and then our current, our second current dog, who we've only had for a year, Dexter.

So we fostered about 10 dogs because I was seeing as we're unloading these animals, the shelter that I volunteer with is really a lovely facility.

However, I've also become to know part of the reason these transports are happening is some of these other shelters are understaffed and overwhelmed with numbers of animals.

I just thought, I really think that I wish someone told me this when I was younger kind of feeling.

I know a lot of middle aged people come to this.

Geez, I wish I knew this and I would love to impart it upon someone.

I would love for.

I tiptoe around like the overpopulation stuff a little bit because it's.

I personally feel like it's a conversation for parents to have, not for me.

So I always just say shelters that are overcrowded and I don't really touch euthanasia.

But ultimately that is what's happening.

So I just hope that the conversation can get bigger through my books.

And the one thing I noticed also that you've got a component of donation with purchases in packaging through your online bookstore.

So I forgot to ask you about that.

I don't want to really miss that a little bit about that donation component because you're already giving of your time, which is, I think if you asked most charities, like you said, they're generally understaffed.

So when someone gives up their time, it tends to be much more meaningful than somebody giving me five bucks and saying bye.

Tell us a little bit about you because you're doing both.

Tell us a little bit about that.

I couldn't be more glad for you to ask that question because again, it's something else that has evolved.

So I was just so personally touched and moved.

Like literally the first time I volunteered at the airport with the animal Air Rescue flight, it was Covid so we had the masks on and I didn't really know anyone.

It was at least in this realm of this area of volunteerism, I was new, so we all kept to ourselves is my point.

But I have gotten to know some of the other volunteers and I'm not the only one that when they opened up that cargo door and I saw all those animals, I was seriously choked up.

I thought, what is happening here to these animals?

Oh my gosh, this is crazy, right?

And so I'm not the only one that got choked up the first time, like now that we've all shared.

Oh yeah, I remember my first flight.

I thought, oh my God, we gotta save these animals.

And you get really motivated.

So I felt like I wanted to give back more.

I.

My thoughts have graduated and evolved.

Two things I all the other authors that I really like to share and promote, I started to play with this year and it was really successful.

So starting this year, I'm going to stop the $2 donation and for the exact reason you just said.

I'm already giving of my time and I'm already sharing their message.

I have their a back matter sheet in both of my books that have the websites and how people can learn more and contribute to the air rescues and the shelter that hosts them in Pennsylvania.

So that I'm just learning to leave as my source of giving.

But what I'm going to switch it up to is, and I did it once this year, I ask other authors again to send me one or two copies of the books and I like auction sell them.

So I have this book and everyone who purchases these books that I'm trying to sell altogether, I use the funds to cover the adoption fee of a specific dog.

And then I take care of the dog.

I make up a little flyer.

So whoever adopts the dog sees the name of the book and the author and who supported this.

And I started to realize it ties people in more because they really see where their money is going and they get a book.

So people were really generous.

Some people bought a book for like a hundred bucks on average.

I'm looking for 350 to $400.

So I might have about five books.

And I just.

And some people say, you know what?

I really, no disrespect to the author, I don't mind just giving you 50 bucks.

But the whole energy and the presentation around covering the adoption fee is what invites people to think about a monetary donation or purchasing the book.

So when they do purchase the book and I mail it out.

I do put, like, a little note in there that the author gave this book and when they were done reading the book, if they would be so kind to leave a review, we'll call it even.

So that seems to have a little bit more traction and a little bit more.

So nice to hear that you have thought this out too, that you tried something and.

And then you thought, what, maybe I can do something a little bit different.

Still trying to do something monetarily, but just change it up a bit.

Congratulations on doing that.

Yeah, it's.

It does take time.

Because I have to say, I would be lying if sometimes I thought, are my tiny little book sale donations really doing anything?

And it just feels like a little bit more is happening.

If we sponsor a dog's adoption fee that was transported by air or something like that.

Seems to hold a little bit more weight than just everyone donates.

Two bucks and no one gets to release the where it goes for sure.

So I also want to talk to you a bit about your character development.

It's neat.

You talk about Zeke and he has that.

His overbite.

So talk to me about the character development of Zeke and then the character development Dexter and how did it evolve?

So what's different from what you did with the first book to with the character development of Dexter?

Sure.

So for the character development, I learned through Journey to Kid lit and the courses I took at Gotham Writers to come up with character cards.

And that way, it helps you stay on track when you're writing your story, because sometimes you can unintentionally add qualities and characteristics that make the reader go, oh, I.

That doesn't really seem like something Zeke would do.

So Zeke's a really nervous guy.

If all of a sudden he was confident in doing a backflip in the play yard with the other dogs, everyone would say, what?

Like, why did we go from sad to totally happy?

What happened?

Everyone is guilty of doing that to some degree.

That kind of helps you stay on track.

Again, the pragmatic mind to Gobert.

So Zeke is an extraordinarily nervous dog, but he's also, like, extraordinarily intelligent.

He's just hyper aware of his surroundings.

So I really wanted to make sure I stay true to that.

And also, he can be reactive.

So he does not like when people come into our home without warning.

So if someone knocks at the door, they no longer can come in.

Like, quite literally, like, I have to go out.

So if we have people come over, he has to meet them outside in the driveway for a Few minutes and warm up and see me talking to them before they come inside.

So I started to develop some empathy for people who have reactive dogs and some reactivity is shy or just like, nervous.

And then I also thought that could be communicated to children who go through those kinds of things.

So his story is more of a empathetic story and is emotional.

And it's true to him, too.

This Halfway Home does show him get adopted twice and returned.

And that is exactly what happened with him.

Because he was having a hard time for what I just described.

People would adopt, stopped him.

Their door would swing open with kids or whoever, and he just cannot handle a busy household or like a sudden entry like that.

Whereas my husband and I do not have children.

And we live in a quiet area.

And so his body language and everything with us was pretty good.

So we knew that we were the right fit for him.

I kept that pretty true to him, character wise.

And so when he does get nervous, he does, like, significantly drool.

And that is like a boxer tendency.

They tell you that their jowls are a little saggy, so they.

When they're taking deep breaths, they create these little bubbles.

So I thought that would be somewhat entertaining for a kid and who can't raise their hand that said, yeah, when I was anxious, I did something that was really embarrassing.

Act out of character, saw that.

So I just thought that might be something relatable.

And then as far as the character development of Dexter, Dexter was a foster of ours, and he's very shy and reactive in the shy way my father nicknamed him when we were fostering, because he's.

We started to identify the pattern.

He's intimidated by people he doesn't know walking towards him.

He quite literally turns around.

So my dad had nicknamed him U turn.

And so that U turn phrase is used in the book because whenever someone new comes around, he does a U turn.

But he was a street dog.

Um, he was found in Louisiana, and he does have some significant scars on him that tell some story that we don't really know.

Um, and so I just thought, I'm going to tap into the street dog element and keep that.

I knew I wanted to do something with the U turn, which was a little inside joke for my family, but it still played into the actual character development of who he is.

And then what I missed in Halfway Home a little, I had literally had grown men, which I doesn't matter if it's a man, but we'll just go with that stereotype.

Tell me that they got emotional reading Halfway Home.

They were like, wow, that really actually choked me up.

So that is definitely received as a compliment that I'm able to tap into people like that.

However, I'm a pretty jovial person in general, and I feel like I missed a little.

Missed having some humor.

I liked seeing little kids laugh at other people's books.

So Daring Dexter is funnier.

So he's a street dog and he intentionally hides from the animal air rescue crews, and he has decided that rescue is a downgrade, he'll lose his street swagger, and he's got nothing to do with it.

And then as far as character development with Zeke and Daring Dexter, he does get adopted by one of the air rescue crews.

You see him again, he's a more confident Zeke.

He actually ends up being a role model for Dexter.

So you see his character evolve into his better self.

Nice.

So I really enjoyed that.

And the only difference really, though, is even though Zeke and the pilot Maeve are also in.

They're both in Halfway Home and Daring Dexterity.

They aren't technically a true series by definition, because Halfway Home is told in a narrator's voice and Daring Dexter is told in Dexter's voice.

So that you should, tactically in a series should be consistent with that.

But isn't that the beauty of self publishing?

Who cares?

You know what?

You've hit it right on the button.

I couldn't agree with you more.

Yeah.

Just who cares?

This is what I decided to do, and I don't feel like explaining it.

Yeah.

And you know what?

Like you said, it sounds like Daring Dexter is more playful.

And that's what you had in.

In your mind.

And so why not?

And most kids like to be playful.

And it's a children's book.

Not everything needs to be so.

So just.

So there's some phenomenal, traditionally published books that do follow every rule and check every box that everybody loves and adores.

But, um, again, that's the beauty of the self publishing.

Just.

I just want to show you that that's all there is to it.

So the theme now that you're going to second editions is has the theme changed at all or is it stayed pretty much the same?

I guess the biggest text changes happened in Halfway Home.

And that was.

I get.

I did find a way to manipulate him.

What we talked about earlier in the podcast, I gave Zeke more agency.

So in.

In Halfway Home, I just let him fall into the lap of one of the air rescue crews, and then she decides to take him home and adopt him, and that's it.

And Then in the second edition, I have him leaning into her so when she walks by, he whimpers to get her attention.

And then the page that she finally takes him home, I added a sentence that says Zeke finally got her full attention.

And with Maeve Z.

So they're literally just sentence changes.

But it is pivotal in the whole determination, the whole layout of the story.

Did any of the your like the central teaching that you're trying to convey, did that change at all?

No, it's just the agency, the character's agency.

Okay.

Okay, Terrific, terrific.

I want to talk to you a bit about the writing process.

If you could share your writing process, how you started your development and what does it look like now.

Think.

I don't know if you can think back to when you first started and then think about your.

How your own development over these last few years has come about on the writing process.

Yeah, sure.

So I literally just started with a notebook and a pencil.

And literally pencil.

Because I kept changing things and I didn't know what I was doing.

And a big eraser, right?

A really big eraser.

Just like an area of the house that could get messy with the eraser graphs kept on redo.

I can't kept on handwriting it.

And then now I tend to just write in Google Docs.

And I know there's a million different ways that you can write and store your documents, but this one seems to serve me just fine.

I like that you can change.

Some people have a specific request for it to be a word doc.

Some people like to be added as a contributor to the document to read and edit it.

I just feel like it gives a lot of flexibility depending on who it is I'm sharing it with and what format they like.

And for me, I'm not an office novice.

Like, hence me go flying airplanes for a living.

Like it's not my skill set.

But it's easy for me to do that.

So I just tend to write things in Google Docs.

And then at the moment, I do have a short story that I'm.

I guess I put it on pause because I wanted the second edition to get finalized before.

Absolutely, yeah.

It takes a lot of work.

Besides your own personal experiences, which are many, did you conduct any additional research when you were putting the second editions together?

And if you did, why did you do that?

I guess in general, it's the simplest thing.

I just read more books.

I got more books.

I mean, it was even a joke with my husband.

He's like, Aaron, how many children's books exactly are we going to have here.

But I also have a great tip for that.

When I'm done with them, I like to either take them to my events or I just deposit them at little free libraries, which actually could be my author.

I'll try to tag them on Instagram or something so they see their book going out in the world.

So I just read more books, and I just started to really, like I said, I really started to hone in on books that I thought were doing well, particularly in the self publishing.

Okay.

Yeah.

I want to talk to you about success because it's.

Everybody's got their own definitions of success.

I'd like to know what you had envisioned as your original goal for success with the first book.

Okay.

So I just wanted to break even.

That was my whole thing.

I thought what I put in, I want to put out.

And I gave myself five years to do that.

I had no idea if that was a good number or a reasonable number.

And I guess, in fairness, what has evolved for me is I don't really know anymore, like, where I'm at.

Like, I used to really track, like, the numbers and how much I sell.

And I just settled into something that my sister told me, and she does work in the business world and in the art theater in New York City.

But she said to me not to minimize what you're doing, but as far as, like, a monetary gain and weighing a monetary gain versus just like, a personal enjoyment gain, she.

This is where she said she doesn't mean to minimize it.

It's almost like a hobby that pays for itself a little.

So if I was a golfer and I spent X amount of dollars, thousands of dollars on clubs and thousands of dollars for the year on a couple tournaments, and at the end of the year, I won two grand in three tournaments that I participated in and got invited to a banquet that I didn't have to pay for, would we call that a success?

Yeah.

What if I was a skier and I paid seven grand for a chalet?

And then I did a couple skiing competitions when I was out there, and I won 500 bucks.

Awesome.

I'm gonna get my new.

Whatever, new ski element.

So that is the mindset that I've settled into.

I have a general idea.

Like, of course I'm not in, like, giant loads of debt, but again, I'm happy to be transparent.

Aaron Murphy books, like, I have a separate bank account, usually sits at $5 in there.

Like, I might get more, but the second I do, I'm buying stickers, I'm buying bookmarks.

I'm paying to be a vendor at an event.

What I'm paying for something that I printed out on Canva or VistaPrints or I'm buying.

I'm hoping people will eventually buy.

And that's what I say to people generally, it's not a path to fame and fortune.

You have to have a passion.

I mean, it's pretty cool.

When I listen to your story, your involvement has grown with you, the way I'm seeing it.

And I look at your books and I go, wow, that's just so neat how you've made it, turned it into something more.

Each stage you seem to be making it into more.

And that's gotta be very satisfying.

Yeah, it is.

And like, I'm starting to feel that satisfaction.

I admittedly, there's been a couple of times where I thought, all right, I have 50 more books to sell.

I'm just gonna wrap this up and I'm gonna be done.

Like, this was a cool, no pun intended, chapter.

And then I just end up getting like a new idea or like I said that I ended up being a part of that coffee table book.

And now I have these great images indeed.

How can I infiltrate that into my books?

If I self publish?

And stuff like that just seems to keep happening.

But no doubt, did I have, or, I mean, without question, did I not have doubts along the way where I thought, okay, how much money am I really gonna spend here?

But then I got introduced to the a la carte options versus strictly the hybrid publishing.

And I still felt supported that way for things.

People who go in green and totally self publish the first time, I mean, it really gives.

I think that's serious hats off.

You really just figure it out.

And it is extremely time consuming.

So, I mean, I'm always going to probably need some sort of support.

That's just my personality, though, is to try to be resourceful.

Whether it's for myself or for others like the dogs, I'm happy to be a resource for them, but I just.

All of it has just evolved, like, without me, really.

Not without me trying, but like those lulls that you have where you think maybe you felt like that you're like, how many books are we going to do here?

But then you get a new idea and something spawns from there.

I couldn't agree with you more.

And that leads me to.

I just wrote a blog on goal setting, believe it or not, tied into children's books.

And being a children's book author, one of the things I saw on your website and I Loved it is you said you posted your goal and I always find that one of the things if you write your goal down, the chances of you succeed seeding are much higher than if you just keep it in the back of your mind.

And in today's world you can make it public on your website.

You've made it very public.

So you say I'm just going to read what it says.

So the audience knows this.

My book goal is to land halfway home in a school library in all 50 states.

Tell us a little bit about that.

Seems quite lofty.

And also tell us about the lend a paw package.

Okay, sure.

The goal got a little.

I haven't promoted that goal other than the pop up window on the website in a while also because I knew I was going to do the second edition books and that's one of my launching strategies for the next book because people have a lot of people already have my book that are particularly in my world.

So this will be an invitation for them to buy a copy and put it somewhere.

So I put a lot of intention into that.

So I have these little postcards so that when someone makes the donation I write the name of the school down that they're donating it to and I and the donor's name so that way they get recognition.

And when it arrives at the school, school people aren't just like what is this book?

Where did it come from?

And so I let them know that and then I also send a follow up postcard to the individual, not the school and just it's the same postcard and I just show them that this is what was delivered in your book and I might send them a bookmark as a thank you again.

So that's all that right there is why there's always only like 500 in Aaron Murphy box for buying cards and postage and you're doing extra mailing but that's okay.

Like I want people to know that I value their, their purchase.

I love it.

Yeah.

So right behind me that you folks can't see it, this is my map tracker.

And so you can very lightly see probably from your perspective.

So you're down the west coast and you're down the east coast.

Middle America.

You're killing me.

Nobody in Minnesota, the Dakotas.

I have no idea how I'm going to get there.

Where I'm hoping to tap into it because I am connected to so many folks in aviation.

Not everyone lives locally like based in Newark.

We got to get you into the Midwest.

Yeah, we got to get me in the Midwest people.

But I have aviation people who live elsewhere.

I got relatives in Arizona.

Maybe I can help there.

And it can be fun though, because people are like, oh yeah.

And then I'll do some kind of a post where I put a pin in the map and I'll tag the person who made the purchase.

So I try to do a lot of follow through.

Wow.

Wow.

We talked about the writing process, but I'm also interested in the role of writing in your life because you got a very busy life being in a commercial air, airline pilot, helping with the spca, the aviation animal adoption.

That's a lot.

So tell me the role of writing.

How does that all fit into all of that?

Typically, I write the most on my work layovers because I'm alone can be distracting.

Or you think, geez, I should be doing X, Y and Z.

Which in reality I probably should.

Primarily happens on my layovers.

I really enjoy doing that.

I like flying a cafe or snuggling up with Netflix in the background in my hotel room.

And now it doesn't dominate.

Like I still like to go out and about, but if I can give myself a good hour or two doing that, then I still have the.

So do you specifically set an amount of time or is it more Loosey goose?

Loosey goosey.

Okay, yeah, okay.

I do.

I will admit though too that I do feel like I get a fever for it.

I just will go on four days where I almost can't even stop.

It goes in waves like that.

I'm interested in advice for aspiring authors because you're a treasure trove of so many different things that you've done and experimented with.

To an aspiring author, what kind of advice would you give to get them started?

I would initially just start taking writing courses.

So things that now let give me like two examples of things that were big game changers for me, especially speaking to picture books.

I had no idea that there were rules to a picture book that has some kind of merit.

Like we talked about elements called the Rule 3, the Hero's Journey and the number of words in a page or in the manuscript in general.

I had no clue about that.

Some things that I did learn some really cool tools that might motivate someone to actually take courses or just do some kind of education on these books.

You don't have to, but this is just what helped me.

So I was told or invited to do two things to find some comparable picture books that I liked.

And I love Troy Cummings.

He's an author illustrator and he does like a Lot of dog and animal books.

So I was invited to write those books out.

Like literally type them out or write them out.

And I felt this word resistance when that was presented to me.

I'm like, I'm not going to sit down and write someone else's book.

I don't know why I didn't want to do that.

I just thought it felt like a waste of time, basically, however I did it and the whole intention of the exercise is to show you how few words there are.

It's almost like even I can critique mine.

That, like, I probably could shave down probably in Darian Dexter, some of the language a little more.

I still hadn't quite figured out how to do it.

But when you see someone who really masters it, like Troy Cummings is a great example.

Jory John is awesome.

He does like the Bad Seed, all the Good egg.

All his books are hilarious too.

Some pages that either have no words or there's three words, just thought, yeah, I arrived, or I went here and somehow it's hilarious.

It's really good.

So I would recommend people writing out comparative books that they are inspired by, whether it's someone well known like Jury John or Troy Cummings, or another indie author that you're really admiring, you feel attracted to at that time.

And the one also, it takes time, too.

I'm over it.

I don't care what I sound like.

I'm over the.

You probably went through this too, doing your podcast, but I know what I sound like now.

It doesn't sound weird like it did in the beginning, but I do a voice recording of what I'm reading that will capture two things.

I will get tongue tied if I have too many words that begin with the letter S in a row.

Because I like alliteration.

I do that in both of the books.

But sometimes I get carried away with it.

Like, I might have an alliteration set, pair of words, and then the third word down is another S word and you just can't say it.

Catch that.

And then also when you hear it back too, you'd be like, man, that took me a week to get that sentence.

But it stinks.

It doesn't tell.

It's still not conveying what I'm on it to.

So I would recommend.

And so when you listen to these, you can be alone.

I mean, no one could delete when you're.

And that's why I was saying out of the mouths of babes.

Like, when I have my grandchildren record the stories and then go this.

If they can't, they're all good readers.

But if they can't read a word or it doesn't make sense when they say to me this isn't for a 7 year old or 8 year old, this word.

Guess what?

I ask them what kind of what word should I use?

I love that.

Oh, that's great.

That's another great tool then too.

Absolutely.

And so when I listen back to my audio stuff, I'm just like running errands.

Like I'm going to the dry cleaners or the grocery store.

I just pop it in my car and I just listen to it.

Then again, I could be alone.

So you don't have to feel self conscious about anything.

So those are the kind of things that I.

So I would really recommend people taking some kind of educational courses.

But for instance, if I published that first rhyme version of Halfway Home, I probably would want to crawl into a foxhole.

It wasn't the right story.

Like it's cute.

But as far as what it's evolved to, I would have missed that opportunity if I didn't educate myself.

But again, the thing I want to point out to everybody is Erin did it.

She had this story that had to get out of her.

She got it down and she brought it to life.

And Aaron, if you hadn't have done the first book, you wouldn't have done the second book and you wouldn't have come into the second edition.

So that's what I try for aspiring authors is, you know what?

Just do it.

Yeah, just do it.

You'll figure you'll find your way.

And like we talked about the self publishing, the hybrid and the traditional.

So I can say for myself, I eventually wanted knew that I wanted to work at one of the three major legacy airlines.

That was important to me.

So if you feel that is important to you, I want to be represented by an agent and I want a traditional publisher and I want to do this in a very academic, professional way.

Go that course.

It will take time, but you go that way.

I just think eventually your instincts start to tell you what to do.

I recently too that she is has a contracting agent and she has a traditional publishing house and then she like self published two books.

So I would also keep in mind if you did traditional, make sure there's in the contract somewhere that you can also self publish.

Because it's like I just want to do this book and bang it out.

I don't want to wait four years and have my editor look at it.

I know how to do it.

Agreed.

Encouragement for readers because without the readers that's our audience.

Tell me, why should children's book readers purchase your book?

Why should they purchase my book?

I would say because it, what I circled back to earlier, it highlights things that are less popular.

So animal rescues are not completely absent.

But some things that have popped up for me that were extremely unexpected and really welcomed is more than I can count at this point.

People that have been fostered or children that are in foster or have experienced adoption or in adoptive families have reached out and said this book was really great because we weren't really ready for a human adoption story because we just adopted or we just started fostering.

But it was great to have the dog be the buffer, but we can still have conversation.

That was not my intention at all.

And that has also blossomed into me volunteering.

I started to think about how can I get involved with some kids in that demographic.

And I started to volunteer with a an organization in my town that has an outreach book club.

So some of the kids fall into that category.

But that was like really unexpected and I mean I love it.

I had no idea that I was going to impact people.

I thought I was just talking about planes and dogs.

Right.

So I would say anyone, the people who are interested or any of that found family theme speaks to you.

I'd say my books are absolutely for you.

Even if you're not particularly a dog lover or animal rescue, not the thing that really speaks to you.

But if something about family found family, adoption and fostering, then my books are completely for you.

And if a reader wanted to purchase your book, look, I know we talked about Amazon, we've talked about on your website.

Tell us a little bit more about the best way to get your book.

Particularly right now, my books, the best place is to get them through my website.

And they are all my first editions are still currently available on Amazon.

Barnes and Noble and ingramsparks like they are still in there, but they do have a limited stock like they all know that.

I'm getting ready to close out those initial ISBN numbers this month so you can order them like people who listen to this soon.

But my second editions will be available by the end of February.

I personally always encourage people to order from my website.

I know what the book looks like.

I can make sure it's not damaged.

I like to add a little extra into that.

It does support the author in that investment return that we're all trying to gain back.

Much more monetarily so than ingramsparks or Amazon.

Snag the book.

However your heart feels when I first learned this, I did a little kind of like hammering on the website.

And I mean, I'll still suggest it and tell everyone it's the best way to support any independent author if they offer it on their website or offer a sales to their website.

However, just however you get the book and you enjoy it, it makes me happy.

Final thoughts.

I.

This was a great interview.

I loved it.

And that's what my final thought was.

I already had it.

I'm like, I'm going to start to.

I need to share some more authors with him or see what his schedule is because especially if you're interested in expanding upon some other authors in the aviation realm, I can, I have met some.

I'm wide open.

I got your name, as you know, from Terry Lindga, who was a guest on the show.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah.

You know what?

Terry's been great.

She's even asked if myself and my granddaughter, who's the co author of our book, would actually mind doing a podcast where we actually read her book in advance as part of the launch of her next book.

Oh, I love it.

My granddaughter and I are getting together on Wednesday to discuss it.

We.

We didn't think that opportunity would come.

But you know what?

Love, love to support Terri.

So.

Yeah, yeah, I know she is.

It's so funny because she has complimented me so much on my website and I've heard her say that in her podcast, you know, name me.

But I knew who she said.

My, my husband's cousin's relative, et cetera.

That was me.

And she was like, oh, Aaron.

And she had messaged me several times like, you've really inspired my website.

My whatever.

And it's so funny because I just told you my website is like my Achilles is one of my challenges.

I can't say it's my Achilles heel, but it does cause me some angst.

So I appreciated that she's getting something out of it, but I will be cleaning it up this week, so I'm excited for it to get even better.

Good for you.

I want to thank you for being a guest on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors podcast.

The generosity of time is wow.

The insights you're sharing.

It's nice to have someone come on and talk about going from their first book to their second book and bringing it to life.

I want to let the listeners know.

We promise to provide the audience with all the links that you've talked about, including all the social media links.

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Thank you.