Aaron Meeser, My Day with Grandma oh.

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

I really appreciate you coming on the show.

Absolutely.

Thanks for having me.

My pleasure.

Before we jump into discussing your, your feature book, My Day with Grandma, you've already published seven children's book, if I have the number correct.

And I actually have your website up on my screen here and, and some really colorful books with cool titles.

Tell us a little bit about.

You're up to seven.

And also tell us a little bit about why you chose today to talk about My Day with Grandma.

Yeah, I started publishing books.

I'd say it was 2021 was my first one.

You know, it was kind of, it was a little bit of an interesting time for many of us.

If you remember 2021.

Yes, absolutely.

I was looking for some things to do and I've always been fan of stories in general, any kind of story, you know, whether it's a, you know, movies or TVs books, any kind of story.

I started to reminisce about my, you know, time growing up.

And I spent a lot of time with my grandparents.

My grandparents are some of the most important people in my life.

And I just, you know, I wonder if I could kind of, you know, put some of this down.

What would that look like?

And it turned into my first book called My Day with Grandma.

Wow.

Fantastic.

It's close to my heart because as a grandparent, I actually co authored our first children's book, the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear, with my oldest granddaughter.

It's amazing the connection that, and I know the connection that my children have with my mom and dad as their grandparents.

And now talking to you and your connection with, with your grandma or Nana.

Yeah, I have both.

I'm very, I'm very fortunate.

I have both my grandma and Anana.

That's really cool.

We'll get, we'll definitely get into that.

That whole relationship kickstarted back in 2021, your first book, and away you went.

So we're going to get into that a little bit more.

It's quite interesting and we definitely will talk about some of your other titles because I love to talk to you about the one that you wrote for young writers.

I think that is such a cool idea and that's close to my heart.

And I'll explain to you why.

Because at the end of our children's book, we actually have what we call activity pages and we encourage children, first of all, write an adventure story and then we actually have what looks like picture frames, but they're actually railway tracks in a picture frame.

And we encourage children to draw their story in those picture boxes.

That's why I'm so curious to talk to you about that also.

But we'll jump into that in a moment.

Talk to us more about the inspiration behind your first children's book and kind of the origin story.

Yeah, I really started to think about a lot of my memories about spending time with my, you know, both my grandparents, but really my grandmother.

You know, things started to stick out and it was very interesting.

I don't know if you've come across this with, with other authors or even your, your own books, but I.

When I started writing my day with Grandma, I began to think about the very specific things that I did with her.

Some of the things in the book are, you know, eating a snack of like string cheese and frozen grapes is a very specific one for me.

Frozen grapes or having.

Having a cup of tea before bed.

I actually was very nervous writing the book and when I started to publish it because I thought, who else is going to have these kind of like, it's very.

So it's almost was too specific to me.

You know, I thought nobody else is going to quite understand my relationship with my grandmother.

And you know, it was, it was a little bit nervous.

I actually had a couple conversations with people that were close to me that I said, do I, should I.

Should I make this more generic?

Like, what should I do?

And thankfully, I think they all said no, just, just do it for.

Do it as if you were writing it, you know, telling your story with your grandmother.

And that's what I did.

What's so interesting is that I've had so many people come up to me and specifically tell me that it resonated with them on a, on a very deep and personal level.

It.

Because it was so specific to those different events, you know, it wasn't just, oh, my grandmother loves me.

We had this rope swing, you know, from a tree that went over this creek, you know, and it was kind of the, you know, death defying, you know, moment as a kid, you know, when you're, you know, nine years old, you feel like it's the craziest thing you could ever do.

You know, the pool growing up, you know, the pool is a major part of going over to their house.

You know, riding down the, the driveway and that'll fire truck.

I mean, that's exactly the.

The lady that did my illustrations for that book, her name was DYSKE.

Collins.

She did an absolutely phenomenal job.

I sent her photos of the different places and things that from that inspired the book, and she turned it into just some of the most beautiful illustrations.

Personally, as far as I'm biased, no.

The book is beautiful.

And I want to pick up on that for a moment, Aaron, because, you know, what I've done with my granddaughter, a very similar situation.

Even though your grandma and yourself are kind of reflected in the illustrations, with my granddaughter and myself, we are actually end up being characters.

We both end up being bears in our story.

At the end of the day, when I was putting the.

The book together and my granddaughter and I wrote our first book, and we've gone on to write many others, and now we're trying to get them published.

But the whole idea was that we looked back.

It was actually my granddaughter who said to me, papa, that's what they call me.

Papa, can we look at the pictures and write stories of all of our adventures?

And that's how it all started.

Most of the.

Actually, all of the stories have a base of realism to them.

And it sounds like for you, that's exactly the same way.

Absolutely.

It's interesting.

There are some.

I would say, I don't want to say magical touches, but there are some things where, you know, you get a sense of the kind of childlike wonder, I think, you know, there's like, you know, a part where they're talking to the bird, you know, and that kind of thing.

And, you know, so there are some little parts of that, but it's a very real book in the sense of.

It's not necessarily.

It's not like a fantasy world, you know, specifically, or anything like that.

It's a very, you know, this is.

Even though it's a whimsical tale, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Tell me a little bit more.

I'm just curious because I actually.

Until you actually mentioned sending photos to your illustrator, which I think is a fantastic idea for aspiring authors, I never thought to this till you said this is.

Tell us a little bit about what did your illustrator say to you when you sent the photos to help come up with.

To trigger some thoughts on how to do the illustration.

Yeah, so I like.

I loved working with my illustrator on my day of the crowd.

I've loved all my illustrators.

But, you know, she being my first book, she did a fantastic job.

She had done several books already, so she was a little bit more seasoned and she kind of guided me through the process.

I gotta say, I probably couldn't have done it without her.

But she, you know, I had said, you know, I have some very specific.

I have a look in my head for the book.

I.

Every book that I write is a very specific look in my head.

Not necessarily specific illustrations, but it's a very specific style.

And as soon as I saw her illustrations, I knew that she had to do it.

Doesn't matter how it happened, but she had to do it.

And I contacted her.

She was very interested.

She loved the story that I sent her.

And I said, I'd like, if you don't mind, I'd like to send you some photos from my childhood, some of the things that we did to give you some reference.

And she was all for that.

I sent her the photos and again, she loved that idea.

I don't know if she had done that before or not.

She hadn't mentioned that.

But, you know, I mean, the, If I showed you the photos versus the illustrations, I mean, it's just incredible.

Obviously, you know, she put a lot of kind of whimsical energy into them.

But I mean, for I look at, I should say, and I just see my childhood.

I mean, it's just amazing.

I love it.

I love it.

So, just so people, aspiring authors know, it's.

It can be just as simple as that.

And it's incredible what illustrators can then take from those photos and create something very magical.

Yeah, I, and I've done this with, with every, every book that I've done.

I'm very specific when I hire my illustrators that they're in charge of the illustrations now.

And obviously this isn't the way everybody would want to do it, but I said, I, I'm not going to tell you what to do.

You know, here's some ideas that I've had, obviously from the.

What I've written, but I'm not an illustrator, you know, I don't know the world of illustration.

So.

Right.

You know, they're the masters.

And, and I'm basically, you know, asking them to, to give me beautiful artwork and I let them have as much free rein as possible.

That leads me to my next question, which is you did your first book.

It sounds like you've.

You've worked with multiple illustrators.

Tell us two things.

Tell us, how did you end up writing as many children's books as you did?

And why not work with the same illustrator?

Why change it up?

What.

What were you searching for?

Honestly, that ties back to what I said about the look of the book in my head.

You know, most illustrators that I've I should say that I've known that I've worked with.

They have a specific style and I wouldn't say that it's.

It's hard or impossible for them to make changes to that style.

But you.

I think there's a style that each illustrator has that they're comfortable with.

And pretty much every book that I've written in my head just looks very different from the next one.

It's just a very, very different feel in my head.

As far as you know, is something going to be more like a watercolor or more of a pencil illustration, you know.

So you said you work with multiple illustrators.

How did you find these illustrators?

If I'm an aspiring author, like how have the where for all to go looking for someone who is going to give you that in your head feel like your.

What was in your head down to an illustration.

Yeah, I.

There's a fantastic website, I believe that it's just called Children's Illustrators.

Com.

I think that's, it's just straightforward as that when that's a database where people have their artwork on the website with their contact information.

And you could spend probably a day, you know, a full day just scrolling through pages of artwork.

And for me it's a simple.

I mean it probably sounds cliche, but it's, it's just.

It clicks or it doesn't.

You know, I could find something that I love if I find an artwork that I love, but I don't think it'll fit my current project.

I'll usually find that illustrator on Instagram or Facebook or something so that it's in my feed, which is also great because that gives you inspiration, you know, all the time when you're looking at fantastic artwork.

Absolutely.

But.

But then, you know, it, like I said, it takes time.

I.

I think I looked for.

It was a couple weeks.

I think I'd go on.

Periodically I'd start.

I'd look through a couple illustrators portfolios.

I'd say, wow, that's really good.

But it's not quite what I'm looking for.

And then I found them and that happened with, with the first two illustrators that I hired.

That was the exact same process.

And then my, the third one, Shelby, she's a local to me.

She.

I had.

After the first two books I published, I began to do some events, some local events.

And you know, and she came up to me at one of these events.

She was looking at the books.

She said, you know, I'm an illustrator.

Would you ever want to Collaborate.

And I said, absolutely.

Fantastic.

Fantastic.

You met her at a book fair or what?

What kind?

Yeah, it was, it was a little like an artisan market that my local community was doing in the summer.

It was a fantastic little market.

And I did, I did it every Saturday morning for, I think it was a four hour event every Saturday for three months.

It was grueling, but it was so worth it.

The people that I met through that, the connections, you know, people coming up and saying, I love your book, you know, what can we do to collaborate?

So let's pick up on that for a moment because I've talked to different people, but they've never really talked about an artisan event.

Almost like a farmer's market.

Exactly.

I'd like to just jump into that a little bit more because you said you had two titles when you were at the market.

Yes, yes, sir.

So, and I'm thinking, you know what two titles was.

Did it pay for itself or tell, tell us about that experience.

Did you break even?

Did you make a little money?

What was the experience?

So that people understand that if they're going to approach their.

Because most places have a local farmer's market, but can you actually, for three months, you know, go out there and sell two books and break even or make some money?

Absolutely.

It's a really interesting what I've learned from that experience.

I actually, the first time I did one of those, which was like a farmer's market, which was like a every Saturday gig for the summer.

I just had my first book and that was, I'm trying to think, I think that was the summer of 2021 or 2022.

And it, they.

I'm trying to remember if I broke even on that or not, to be totally honest and frank.

And I, I hate, I hate to sometimes bring this up because it, it.

I don't want to ever discourage anybody, but it, it is, it is.

Can be tricky to break even sometimes on books.

There, there can be some cost involved.

Listen, don't get me wrong, Aaron.

I think it's important that you don't want to.

I always talk about, I've, I've talked about it on other shows, other podcast episodes with other children's book authors.

Most of us know it's not a, a race to richen anything.

I know some people, you know, they, they get a little discouraged when you talk about how much it costs.

I, I did not break even on the books.

I did break even on the cost of the, the event, for sure.

I made more than the, the event.

Cost me to do for sure.

And, and would you, would you do it again?

Oh, absolutely, I did.

I did do it again the next summer.

I did it with my second book as well.

I had two books out and that's when I met my illustrator friend there.

But that was essentially the same thing.

Having two books definitely helps because you have a little bit more of an option for people if they're shopping around.

Another lesson though, that I learned from that, which was interesting, is that if you're going to do a market that's wish to like that, almost like a farmer's market, books can be tricky because most people coming to the farmer's market are coming there every week for their produce and such things.

Once they buy your book once, whether or not they're going to buy it again, you know, they may need a gift for somebody, but it's not something that they're going to purchase like they would their tomatoes or such, you know.

Every week I've had much more success from one weekend event, you know, a special event.

Thank you for sharing that.

That's really important.

I'm looking at your publishing approach.

I talked to the audience.

There's generally three types of ways to publish.

There's the traditional way where you find a publisher and they publish your book.

There's self publishing where you take on all of the work, all of the tasks and you publish your own book.

And then there's what I call hybrid publishing where generally sometimes you find what's called a hybrid company where they, they take on some of the rule, they have a kind of a schedule and, and you fit in there and you do some of the work to, to keep the cost down.

And then there's really like, in my case I'm going to call it a la carte because that's how my granddaughter and I did it.

We took on quite a few tasks.

We went and found, you know, a graphic artist or a book formatter, stuff like that.

So we took on most of the management to bring the book to market.

Tell us what's your approach?

And I know with you having seven children's books, tell us about your journey because you may, it may have changed since you brought out A Day with Grandma.

I've actually, it hasn't changed too much.

I've always done totally self published through Amazon's KDP program.

It did take me a while to narrow down what I wanted to do at the beginning because it's very, it can be very daunting thinking about all of the roles that you have to take on as a self published author, you know, your, your own publicist, you know, you're, your own social media, you know, know, person like you, that's all on you.

It's, it's every, every bit of it except the actual printing of the book, you know, is on your hands.

So.

But it was also for me it was a cost thing.

I knew that I could make, I have, you know, slightly larger returns if I wasn't, you know, part of that wasn't going to a specific publishing house or another, you know, kind, you know, any kind of the bigger publishing houses.

To me I probably could have spent more time trying to submit.

I honestly I didn't really submit to any, you know, big publishing houses.

My first book, really for me it was more of a personal project.

You know, I just wanted to make it for really almost.

I thought about it originally almost as just a book for, for my grandmother, you know, and then it kind of spiraled from there.

But tell us, did you also use IngramSpark or are you using Ingram Sparks?

No, I've not used their platform, just solely kdp.

Interesting.

And I talk to people about Ingram Sparks because I know a lot of authors look to how do they get into like Barnes and Noble and all the other major book retailers like Apple and stuff like that.

And generally the only way that you can do that is go through ingramsparks.

And a lot of times the files are the, the print files and book formatting are pretty much the same.

So the transition is fairly simple.

But again, I don't want to rain on your parade in terms of, I mean, if KDP and Amazon is working well for you, that's fantastic.

So tell us a little bit about that.

Why not make your book available to Barnes and Noble online and the other online, online book retailers.

My first book, My Day with Grandma is actually available on Barnes and Noble.

They, at least at the time they did have a way to self publish sim very similar to how Amazon has KDP And I did use their, their platform.

I found it, to be very honest, much more difficult to use than Amazon's platform.

This is Barnes and Noble's Barnes and Noble?

Yes.

Yep.

But I did really like Barnes and Noble because they had one option that Amazon still does not have and that's for hardcover copies.

I do have.

I originally purchased several hardcover copies to, to sell as well as the softcover and I, I did, I did publish through them for my first one but then the other ones I, I didn't see enough return from their website and I didn't see enough interest in the hardcover from my sound to warrant the kind of, the effort that was going into that.

So that would be the one, the one thing that I've, I've said, I guess.

But you know what, that's a tough one because when we first launched our first children's book, a lot of people said, do you have a hardcover?

And the only way that we could bring a hardcover to market was go through Ingram Sparks.

And we chose not to do that at this point.

It's interesting because right now in the children's book authors that I've interviewed, I'm actually tracking now how many have hardcovered books and how many don't like the percentage.

And right now it's 60% do, 40% don't.

That's very interesting.

Yeah.

So again, you'll, you'll drive the.

Because you're not really selling any hardcover, correct?

No.

Yeah.

So you'll drive that percentage up a little.

Yep.

That's okay.

I just want people to understand that, you know, what you might do, as Aaron did.

Well, I just like to have the hard copy, but at the end of the day, realize.

And you know what, Aaron, it's interesting because if you look for pricing on hard copies, it really, really goes from.

There's such a range.

Yeah.

But they're generally about two and a half to three times the price of a soft cover book.

Yeah, absolutely.

Which, I mean, not that I, I didn't, I didn't have let this factor too much into my, my thought behind it, but, you know, I do want to make sure that my books are accessible to, you know, a wide range of people.

I don't want to price them.

You know, I know, I know that I probably could price them a little bit higher.

Some people have mentioned that to me, but I, you know, I want people to be able to enjoy them.

You know, I'm, I don't really do this for profit.

And the hardcover, I'm trying to think of the exact cost when I started, but I think I originally was selling my soft covers for about $8 at the market.

And my hardcovers, due to the extra costs where I had to sell them at 15, so almost double.

If you look online, if you're going through Amazon or, or, or Barnes and Noble or any online retailer, you're going to find there's definitely a large spread.

Once in a while I see they, they come on sale.

I'm not quite sure how that happens.

Yep.

Because a lot of times I see the hardcovers come on Sale for the price of probably what it costs to produce them.

So, yeah, yeah, it's, it's interesting.

I want to jump in on your website.

You got a great website.

And I find that children's book authors come at their website in two different ways.

One is their website is their name.

I was introduced to you through Terry Linda.

Terry Linga.

It's Terri Linga books.com so she added books into the, into that.

And yours is your name.com, right?

Yep.

The other way.

And I mentioned this to people because this is the way my granddaughter and I chose to do it.

Ours is called the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear.

And there's lots of adventures, community and family members and there's lots of characters that'll be introduced over the years.

We chose to, to call our website after our main character.

And what I'm trying to explain to people is there's no right or wrong way.

But tell us a little bit about.

I've got two questions for you on your website.

One is your website development and two, when you wrote your first book, did you have your website first or did your website come after your first book?

My website development, I use a website developer called WIC W I X.

I've enjoyed using them a lot.

It's very intuitive for somebody like me who doesn't, you know, I don't have any interest in learning coding or anything like that that might be necessary for other website software.

So it's very intuitive for me.

I've been using them since the beginning and that's a good question.

I believe that the website came, but it was pretty close because I wanted, when I was going to publish it and then go out to some of these events, I wanted to make sure that I had a place for people to go and, and find me.

Did that come as a result of the first time you went out and you tried to sell your book and you went, and people said, oh, Aaron, can I go to your website?

And you went, no, I don't have one.

So okay, yeah, pretty much.

If it, if it wasn't already like that, it would have been because I, I think that, I believe that the, I think I had the website.

But you know what's funny is I didn't have was, was business cards.

And I think it's something that's another one of those things kind of like website that you don't sometimes don't think about until you have somebody who says can I have your business card?

And you say, no, I, I don't have one.

I want to show you a little idea I want to share with you.

This is kind of turned out to be our business card, because I don't have a business card.

But what we did is we developed a bookmark.

If you scan the QR code, you get two things.

One, you get introduced to the audiobook of our first book.

So you get a free audiobook, and it also takes you to our website.

And there, there's our contact information.

I love it.

I did do with, for my first book as well.

I won't say quite a bit, but a decent amount of, I don't know what you might say promotional.

But it made bookmarks.

I made stickers and things.

And the bookmarks, honestly, are very popular.

I don't know if you found that, but so that, that's a great idea.

I love that.

I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna steal that idea.

Oh, good.

Help fill your boots.

The other thing I wanted to mention to people is that when we, when we went to market our book, of course, people said, well, what's your website?

And we, and I went, we don't have one.

The one positive thing is that because we are a children's adventure book, and we, we ended up being able to use our graphics that we use for our children's book to help develop our website.

So it saved us.

I don't, I have no idea, because I, I, I don't know what it would have cost if we wouldn't have had the artwork to develop a website.

So the nice thing about it, you know, in a book, our book is eight and a half by eight and a half inches, children's book format on a website, it's more horizontal and wider.

When you look at it, even that even though it's the same graphic, it doesn't look like the same graphic I've used.

I don't know if I have any of my book artwork on the website.

I don't think I do, other than the photo of the book.

But I've used the artwork from the books for a lot of my social media promotions and the other things, like the stickers and the bookmarks and things.

It is interesting.

It can get a little tricky when you're trying to make, you know, like a Facebook banner, you know, that goes in, you know, across the entire screen with essentially a square image.

The other thing I wanted to talk to you about is that, you know, someone who's had this experience, I think you said you did it for two summers working at a farmer's Market and the first year selling one book and the next year you had two books.

And I noticed some folks have actually used someone like Printful or Shopify to enhance their offering to help generate a little more revenue.

Now I don't believe from looking at your website you have anything other than your books.

Is that correct?

Correct.

Yeah.

I have not.

That's something I probably should consider and look into further.

I just have each book on the website has a little, you know, buy now link that just takes them to the Amazon where they can purchase the book on Amazon.

Have you ever thought like I, and the reason I say this is I was talking to Terri Lindga and when her and I first met she, she didn't have a store where she was offering other items.

And yet, yet her first book, Santa Simon had a lot of co, really cute stuff that, that especially around Christmas could be put on a coffee cup or whatever and be given as a gift.

And I thought, you know what, when I get to, to interview Terry I'll ask her about this.

And then all of a sudden I noticed she had coming soon.

And then by the time I got to interview her, she had established a store.

Oh, gotcha.

Yeah.

On her website.

On her website.

And I thought wow.

And she, you know, like she had a lot of nice looking offerings like coffee cups and book bags and stuff like that.

Talk to us a little bit about that.

Do you think if you would have at the farmer's market had a few more items that were, you know, the brand especially I'm looking at like your Bubba and Pip.

Bubba and Pip, yes, yes.

Like I look at that book and I look at the characters and I think oh, that, that'd be pretty cool.

Now I, I, I don't own that one, that book but I'm sure inside it's probably quite colorful.

Am I correct?

Yeah, absolutely.

There's probably lots of artwork that could be turned into some pretty neat things.

I absolutely, if, if I did a market again when I would love to do a market again, I a hundred percent would want some of the things there.

I, I, the third year I didn't do a market because unfortunately the market that I was doing actually closed down for the year.

But I, I was planning on creating a couple things.

I wanted to do a book bag which I know that Terry has you said.

But the one character from my day with grandma that I thought and I don't know if you saw this in the book, if you picked up on it, but there is the main character that the child carries Around a very specific looking toy stuffed monkey.

Oh, yes, yes.

I think I saw him on the couch.

Right?

Yes, yes.

Yep.

He's in a few of the pages there and I thought, oh, yeah.

And he's.

His grandmother is holding the monkey while he's on this swing that you're talking about, the rope swing.

I believe it's kind of the old like sock monkey style.

Yes.

Right there on the couch.

Yeah.

So, you know, I read your book when I could tell you that, and it did stick out.

Yeah.

So.

So I thought that would be a great little, you know, kind of a stuffed animal I could have when I do another event like that.

I'd love to have some of those things.

I think that's absolutely a great idea.

And it's interesting you should say that because you kind of jog a memory.

My wife's mother, she lived till she was 97 and she had all of her faculties.

All of.

Yeah.

And she had a favorite monkey, but it was George, you know, George the monkey.

Oh, absolutely.

Curious George.

That's what she had.

But you know what?

So it doesn't matter what age you are, whether you're a child or a 97 year old woman.

We kind of bond with our stuffies.

Right?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So I'm curious, and I know we talked about both your grandma and your nana.

Or you call her.

I say Nana, you say Nana.

Nana, Yes.

A little bit, A little bit different on the a there.

But yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I'm curious.

Is about a specific person or an event that we know you talked about your.

Both your grandma and your nana.

The nana is your.

Is a second book you've written called Nana's Magic Needle.

And so that's your nana who is different from your grandma.

Yes.

Yeah.

So one's on your mom's side, one's on your dad's side.

Exactly.

Yes.

Yep.

Okay.

Yep.

So they obviously they had some motivation on you as a child and.

But you went on to write, right now you've got seven children's books.

So there's five children's books where there's different motivation or events.

Talk to us about that.

Maybe specifically about the young writer's picture book.

I thought, what a genius thing to do.

So talk to us about that.

What was the motivation or the event that you said, I have to bring this book to market.

Absolutely.

That's actually my.

Was my third book.

So I had written the other two.

And that one was born out of a couple different ideas kind of combined.

One was exactly what we had just Talked about with having some other things to be able to have at a table.

You want to be able to kind of fill the table out.

So I wanted something that I could do that to be.

To be frank.

Also slightly less to.

To print.

If somebody purchases that book, they'll notice the inside.

It's more of a black and white.

You know, there's no color illustrations, because the whole point of that book is for the child or student to write and illustrate their own book, but it's more of a, you know, plain paper inside.

The costs for printing that are actually significantly lower.

And I wanted to be able to have something that would inspire the next generation of writers and readers.

I did with my first book.

Were you finding that as you went out and you talked to children about your first two books, you were getting young children?

Were they a lot of your motivation to do this?

Absolutely.

I can actually pinpoint to a specific moment.

So I did.

After I published my first book, I did several library visits that I had to local libraries, and all the kids, you know, really enjoyed write, you know, reading the book or listening to me read the book, I should say.

And then I did one school visit with a kind of a small private school that's near me.

And I did.

It was, let's see, four, I believe, four different sessions.

They had four different grades.

And each grade would come and I'd into the gymnasium and I.

I'd read the book to them, ask any.

Or answer any questions they had, and then they go back to class, and then the next group would come in.

And so it was a good couple hours of being there, and I was a little bit tired by the end.

And the other thing that happened was they started with the youngest group and went to the oldest group.

By the time you got to the ninth graders.

I don't know if you've ever read a children's book to ninth graders, but, you know, it can be a little bit daunting.

I love that age group.

But reading a children's book to them could be a little bit.

A little bit tricky, you know, and, you know, you're asking if they have any questions about the book and they.

You don't get too many answers.

So it was a.

It was a bit of a way to end it where I thought, you know, you know, am I really.

Am I inspiring anybody?

I don't know.

You know, if you know it.

Not that really, you know, makes a big difference, but.

And as I was about to leave, I was kind of packing up, and all of a sudden There was this big group of kids.

All of a sudden, they're all around me.

It was like they just kind of came out of nowhere.

And their teacher walks up to me and she said, you know, we read them the first group that you read to.

And we went back to the class and the kids all asked if they could do their own book for the rest of the day.

And so every single one of these kids had a little booklet that they had written in the last hour and a half that I was there of their own book.

And they were just so excited to show me.

Wow.

That was the moment that I knew, I will forever write children's books, and it doesn't matter if I ever make a penny off of them, because that's worth it.

Did you decide to go into children's book publishing?

Pretty much, yeah.

That is a fantastic story.

I love that.

You know, and that's what I was saying to you.

That's what, what motivated us to do up our activity pages is to encourage children to embrace the idea of storytelling.

You know, Aaron, I think about this a lot because I don't know about you.

And people think, well, the art of storytelling is dead.

And I say, no, it's not.

I said, how many of you have Netflix?

Everybody puts up their hand.

So how many Paramount hand goes on Disney?

Right?

It just goes on and on.

And I say, where did those companies are?

I guess I'm not sure if thirsting is the right word.

They're looking for stories and they'd like original content.

And so the storyteller will be around forever.

Okay.

And so I just want everybody who's listening to understand.

And it's.

When you're a storyteller and you're.

And you're writing your children's book, I see that you've made a couple of.

Of short films also.

Well, guess what?

Filmmaking is storytelling, and you need a script, and that comes from somebody telling a story.

I just remind everybody that, you know, what if we can encourage people to be the world to have more storytellers, because you're know what?

There is going to be more Netflix companies and there's going to be more Disney's and there's going to be more Paramounts, it's just going to keep going and they're going to be looking for great storytellers.

Absolutely.

So it's something I've.

I've kind of thought about for myself.

And this might feel seem a little bit, I don't know, out there or not, but, you know, I've.

I'VE fully convinced that writing is the closest thing to that we have to actual magic in the world.

You know what other.

I mean, you're.

You're putting, you know, some ink on a.

On a.

Something called paper, which is really, you know, like.

Like a tree in a special way that certain markings, and you give it to somebody else, and all of a sudden vivid images come onto their head.

I mean, what else could we.

Could we call that besides magic?

And that's really what.

What we do as storytellers and writers, as we create magic.

Absolutely.

And that really leads me to.

My next question is now that you have seven children's books and.

And they don't have a central character, talk to us about your character development and do you.

Each character is a little different.

I think one of them, I thought saw here, I thought was kind of a cool thing.

King Mike and Gummy Bears.

Explain to us how you develop your main characters.

That one is a very.

It's a very specific story.

That one, this gentleman that I know, I.

I worked with him, and he's a kind of a little bit of an eccentric man and very, very kind, very kind man.

One of the kind of odd things that he did is that he would walk around all day with gummy bears in his pockets and.

And he would offer them to you throughout the day.

And, you know, the first time it happened, I thought, what in the world?

Yeah, okay, I know.

I know what you're saying.

They pull gummy bears out of his pockets, and he's like, I don't know how to take this right now.

And then you get to know him and you realize that, for one thing, he just loves gummy bears and he just wants to share with people, and that just became that story of this man.

And the other thing about him that I guess is important to know is that he was kind of quoting known as King Mike around the.

The office that we worked at.

So that it just.

It was like a spark in my brain of King Mike and the gummy bears, of course.

And that's fantastic.

And again, just sharing with everyone that, you know what.

You just never know where your main character is going to come from themes, because you have a wide variety of books.

Talk to us about the themes.

I don't want to put any words into your.

Your mouth.

I don't know if I have.

I'd say one theme.

If there is one central theme, I could say it's tough to say.

So, yeah, each book is a little bit different.

I mean, you know, I think my My first book, My dad's Grandma.

It's about family.

You know, same thing with my, My second book, not as Magic Needle.

You know, that was a little bit more, you know, whimsical.

And, you know, it's a little bit more, you know, it's about a.

Magical magic needles and then magic needle.

Make a quilt.

Oh, yes.

Oh, yeah.

So my, My Nana is one of the best sewers.

If, I mean, again, I'm biased, but the best sewers I've ever known.

And, you know, I'll tell people that forever, of course, but, you know, she could make anything out of, you know, needle and thread.

I mean, it was.

It's just amazing.

And one of the things that she liked to make a lot was quilts.

So I, I, absolutely.

There's quilts in that book for sure.

Everywhere in there.

My third book is called Sam in the Pool, and that was from my growing up going to the pool and my brother and what it's like as a.

As a kid trying to remember what it's like when you're standing at the edge of that big pool and you just know, you know, you see everybody else in there having fun, but there's just something that makes you nervous to jump in.

Kind of the story about, you know, one brother helping, then another brother to overcome that nervousness.

Is there an underlying theme throughout your books?

I would say it's tough to pinpoint one for.

At least for my.

I'd say family is a big one.

Family.

I would say growing up is probably another one, and acceptance is another big one.

Acceptance in what way?

Acceptance of differences in people.

That's.

That's really the core focus of Bubba and Tips that that book is all about acceptance.

But I think that there's, there's acceptance in, in the other ones as well.

And what about a central lesson or teaching that you're trying to convey?

All of us, you know, with children's books, have this opportunity.

We have this platform.

So what's the central or lesson?

Is there a central lesson or teaching that's underlying in each of your books?

Yeah, a common one, I would say, is that we're all.

I guess it ties to acceptance, but is that we're all different and we all have different journeys that we're going to go on.

A book that I'm working on right now, I'm very excited for is called Taller by Tomorrow.

And it's about a young boy who wants to be taller tomorrow, and he does everything he can in one day, you know, to get as tall as he can.

He eats all his vegetables, he drinks his milk, he hangs from the monkey bars.

You know, all the things you could think of.

You know, how do I get taller?

And, you know, kind of that idea of, well, we're all going to be different.

We're all going to have different strengths, and some of us are going to have some weaknesses, but it's okay because we are who we are and we have to love who we are.

That leads me to your writing process.

Share some insights into your book development and your writing process for each of your children's books.

Like, is.

Is it the same or has it evolved over the last while?

Tell us about that.

My writing process, it tends to be.

Tends to be similar for each one, though it does vary.

Honestly, it starts with just an idea.

It could be, you know, a visual something I see, you know, a story that I.

A memory that I, you know, suddenly have.

And I think, oh, I bet that that could be something.

And I write it down.

I put it in a little notepad, and it could sit there for a while.

There are.

There's a couple ideas that I have that I love, that I've been in my notepad for five years, and someday there'll be something.

Are you conducting any additional research when you put your books together?

I do, yes.

I'll start to think about, you know, what, I have an initial idea, and then how does that build, you know, what is.

What are the other, you know, ideas that I can play with?

I get a lot of inspiration from art and illustrations.

That's a big part of my process.

So I'll start to look up some art and see, you know, that'll spark a lot of ideas.

And so I guess.

I guess I would say that would be.

That would fall under research for me.

I haven't heard that one before.

That's the whole thing about research is it just doesn't have to be going to the library or going on the computer.

It can be very broad.

Yeah, fantastic.

Talked a little bit about this, but now I'm going to get more specific with you.

Tell us about your original goal or goals regarding your first book launch and how has that changed now that you're launching, you know, you've launched your seventh book.

You're talking about writing your eighth book.

Tell us about that.

That's a really good question.

My.

I think my goals for my first book were, again, it was.

It was.

Honestly, it was a very personal book.

My goal was really to just write it for my grandmother and for my family, and then I decided to.

To publish it.

When I launched it, I really didn't know what to expect.

You know, I.

I thought, you know, of course, I'm sure we've all had those moments and we think maybe somebody on the Today show will see this and they'll, you know, suddenly I'll be doing book tours, Manhattan or something like that.

You know, there's always those moments.

But I also thought, you know, if nobody sees this, you know, it doesn't matter because I.

I love doing the book and I love the book.

But you weren't into this for.

I mean, even though we'd all love to sell thousands and thousands of books, that wasn't your main measurement for success.

No, no, I.

For me.

And again, this might sound a little cliche, but it's.

It's about the story.

And when I have a story in my head, I have to get it out somehow.

It has to be on paper, you know, and I have to.

Have to materialize it, essentially.

Okay.

So that's more.

For me, it's more about the.

The act of.

Of just creation in a book and then sharing that with people.

I'm thinking back a little to the farmer's market and.

And you worked a couple of them.

Yeah.

Talk to us about that sales success and then how it's evolved now.

Now you're going to market differently.

Talk to us about that.

Yeah.

So like I said, doing the farmer's market was very interesting because you had a lot of.

I had a lot of sales quickly from the first couple of weeks, but then by the end of the summer, you know, you're seeing the same people.

They've been there every week for Blue whole summer.

They're not as much as interested anymore.

So that was it.

Wouldn't.

I wouldn't.

I don't want to say it was discouraging because I.

I kind of quickly realized what was happening when you start to see the same people walk by and they stop and they say, hey, I loved your book.

And then they walk on because they've already bought it, you know, so you start to realize, oh, all right.

Well, it's the same clients over and over again.

I.

They need to have a new.

New product for them to purchase or, you know, I need to.

And did you get some reaction where they said, aaron, when are you coming up with your next book?

Yes, actually.

It was.

It was funny.

The thing that I heard probably the most was, when.

When is my Day with Grandpa coming out?

I love that.

That's bad.

They were all the grandpas Were a little jealous.

But yeah, I know because everybody always says hi mom on tv when the sports guys are right, when they catch a touchdown, they say hi Mom.

They never say hi dad or they never say hi Grandpa.

Right.

Okay.

I've never thought about that.

You're right.

Yeah.

But yeah, so that was a big.

When I was going to go for the second year, I knew I had to have some variety, but at that point I had published the second book, so that worked out.

And then that's when I published the Young writers book as well.

And so that was, it was nice to have three, essentially three things to offer at that, at that time.

Again, I don't know going forward if I would do another farmer's market in the same way where it's an every week kind of a thing.

I've really, I found a lot more success from these kind of one day events.

Those, those are really.

Thank you for sharing that.

I think that's really important for people to know that.

Talk to us about the role of writing.

I'm really interested, especially with you having now seven books and I'm thinking, oh, in the grand scheme of things in your life now, what's, what's the role of writing?

Unfortunately, it's never as big of a role in my life as I'd like it to be.

How does it fit in your life then?

It's really something that I do, you know, when I kind of get.

Feel this, this need, this urge to write.

I work full time.

I work, I do lots of other things kind of outside of, of work.

So there's time.

As always, the big enemy.

How much time do you think you devote to writing?

I would say I probably devote at least two good solid hours every week when I'm developing an idea.

Okay.

But once I'm in the driver's seat and I'm ready to go with a book and I've got the idea and I'm ready to roll.

I mean, I'll spend four or five hours every day in the evenings.

Wow.

Working on it.

I'm curious about advice for aspiring authors.

What kind of advice would you give to an aspiring author who wanted to get started?

Yeah, I mean, my first piece of advice, be a very basic piece of advice, is do it.

There's very few other things that I've done that have been as rewarding as this.

It's really an amazing, amazing thing to be able to do.

I'd say my other piece of advice is, you know, don't worry about getting it right the first time Or I should say getting it perfect.

You know, you're.

Don't worry about getting it perfect ever.

But especially the first time.

I don't think children.

Now, this is just my personal experience.

I don't think children get caught up in looking for the perfect word.

I've told this story a couple of times.

Is that the neat thing about.

We've written 38 stories in our book series.

Now, we haven't brought them all to market and.

But what we have done is I've got five grandchildren, so I've used four out of five of them, like reading, had them narrate the books.

The neat thing about them narrating the stories is that they'll say to me sometimes, oh, I don't understand that word.

I don't think anybody my age can understand that word.

So they end up being really good editors.

Because when you get an editor, they're usually your age or older.

And they're not your age.

They're not younger.

Yes.

And they're not considerably younger.

So to actually have an editor, that's actually the target market.

Pretty cool.

That is.

That's a great.

I should.

Because I have several younger siblings, I should start using them in that way.

Absolutely.

I don't know if I can pay them an ice cream or not, but, you know, there you go.

The most important person towards the end of the.

Of the podcast interview is encouragement for readers.

Why should children's book readers purchase your book?

Oh, absolutely.

I.

Well, why should they purchase my book?

That.

That's a.

Or book.

Sorry, books.

Yeah, books.

You know, I would say for.

If you purchase my books, if you want to kind of get a sense of the wonder of childhood, you know, the memories that you have.

Some of my.

The people that have, I would say, at least to me, have shown them to me that they have enjoyed my books the most, were grandparents, which is interesting.

Older folks who they, you know, maybe they don't think as much about their childhood as much anymore.

It's.

It might be something they haven't thought about in a little bit was spending time with their grandparents.

And all of a sudden they're reading this book that's.

That's speaking to their grandchildren, but also to them, you know, so that.

Well, I always say that I'm a big kid at heart.

I get to live through being a kid again through my grandkids.

I try not to.

You know, I don't want to hurry up getting, you know, older.

But I do look forward to that.

You know, there's a different season of.

Life you get, you can stay younger.

Make sure that some of your friends are a lot younger.

Like your grandkids.

Exactly.

There you go.

Yep.

We talked about, I want to make sure everybody knows the, the books are, all your books are available on Amazon.

Yes.

Yep.

And if you have Amazon prime, just like I did, you'll get the book the next day.

Yes.

That's amazing, isn't it?

Isn't that incredible?

So I love it.

Final thoughts, Aaron?

Sure, sure.

Some final thoughts.

If you, if maybe you thought, you know what, Rick, I wish you would ask me this question or I, I got something I gotta get out.

What is that?

Ooh, that's a good.

So honestly, I, I would just say, you know, I, I got, because you asked me about advice for, you know, somebody who's interested in, in publishing.

I've actually talked to a couple people who have thought about it and there is always some hesitation that you can see in their face when they're talking about it and they're saying, I have this idea.

I think it would be a great book.

And I just don't know.

And it's that really, it's the unknown that is the key there because that's pretty much, I think all of life is that unknown.

Right.

Stepping into the unknown.

And all I can say is do it.

Absolutely do it.

It's the most rewarding thing I've ever done, you know, and it'll be a.

Big part of your life forever, right?

Forever.

Forever.

I, I, I mean, I don't, I don't see any reason why I'll ever stop writing.

You're such a young guy.

Like, you're gonna have hundreds of books.

I hope so.

I'll be able to take Aaron, I.

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

Your generosity of time as being just incredible and your insights, it's just so nice to talk and get the insights that we can share with other aspiring book authors.

Children's book authors.

So, so important.

And you've given us so much to think about.

We promise folks to provide you with links to Aaron's website, his social media links.

That'll all be in the show notes.

But if you've enjoyed this episode, please, please hit the subscribe button and listen to future episodes.

We'd really appreciate that and feel free, feel free to share this episode.

If you've been inspired by Aaron, please share it with whoever you know that would have interest in children's books because Aaron's got a.

A stable of children's books that is just, bar none.

There's lots of.

It's very diverse, and you'll find something in there that.

That your children will love.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.