MB Mooney, the mouse who couldn't eat cheese.

Welcome.

I'm calling you Brett.

I'm not calling you MB depending on what you'd like me to call you, but you can maybe explain that a little bit to the audience before we jump right in.

Yeah.

MB Is my author name.

So MB Mooney is Matthew Britton.

So my first two initials, and that's what I started to go with years ago when I got into the publishing arena.

But most people call me Brit.

It's a shortened version of my middle name, so that's where that comes from.

That's cool.

And you know what, Brett?

It's interesting because I actually go by my middle name.

My full name is William Richard, and I go by Rick.

Wow.

I trace this back on ancestry all the way back to the 1700s.

It's interesting.

It's all the men in the Harris family go by their middle name.

Wow.

Yeah.

It's obviously a family tradition.

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

Britt has written a children's book, the Most who Couldn't Eat Cheese.

And I really look forward to this conversation because Britt and I were talking just before we started the recording about finding a point of difference, and I really believe that Britt's book brings a point of difference, an important point of difference, and we're going to get into that.

So the first thing I wanted you to know, Britt, I did get your book.

Oh, nice.

My wife says, oh, my God, Rick, you're going to have a zillion children's books.

And she said, maybe you should start converting over to the ebook format because we're running out of space in your office.

I really want to make sure that when I'm talking to a children's book author, I do have a copy of one of their books.

And so it just gets me to know you before I even get to.

To talk to you in person.

I'm curious, and the audience is going to understand more as we get into this interview, because you write in two different genres, and I believe that this book, the Mouse who Couldn't Eat Cheese, is your first children's book.

My first published children's book.

Yeah.

I've got a couple others that haven't been published yet.

We'll see what happens.

But, yes, this is my first children's book.

All right.

I'm interested in.

Because when I send the links out for people to go to your website, they're going to realize, oh, my goodness, this guy really took a 180.

And I'm more curious, of course, about your children's book authorship.

So tell us what it means to be a children's book author.

For me, I have a history of an education.

To your point, the main genre that I write in is fantasy and science fiction.

It's YA friendly, adult.

But also, I've got a YA book out there.

And for me, I love books of all kinds.

I'm one of those weird people that thinks, oh, I could write that.

And although publishers don't always like that because they like to put you in a genre, they like to put you in a box, so to speak.

For me, children's books were some of my first loves, as most of us were.

My mom taught me how to read when I was four.

Good for her.

Because my younger brother was born when I was two and a half, and she was busy with me, a very energetic toddler and a baby.

My younger brother and I kept wanting her to read to me.

I just wanted her to read books all day.

Her solution to that was to get me to stop bothering her, was, maybe I'll teach him how to read so he can learn to read on his own.

And so I just started to read at a very young age.

I wrote this particular.

This children's book.

My own kids were young, so I had kids who were 4, 6, and 8.

So I had younger kids at the time.

And we read all the time to our kids, and we read chapter books when they were a little older.

We read kids books.

We did voices, we did the whole thing.

I'm a big believer in reading and story and engaging kids and people of all ages and stories.

So.

Yeah.

So when I was approached with writing a children's book, it, like you said, it was outside my norm, but I was excited about it, for sure.

Good for you.

I want to dig into behind your book.

Tell us about the inspiration and the origin story.

Take us down to how this all got started and why.

Sure.

Tell the Frankenstein story.

Right.

I took different pieces for different.

I was going to a church at the time.

My family was very involved.

And there was another family that was very involved, the Davidsons.

And the parents were extremely involved, volunteered with a lot of different things.

And their youngest daughter, Alexandra, had Crohn's disease and had a fairly severe case of it.

She was in the hospital a lot from the time she was very young.

And when I met Alex, she was probably 17 or so.

Okay.

And again, in and out of hospitals and having a lot of issues.

And then she passed away around age 20, 21.

Alex was a very inspiring young woman.

She inspired a lot of people.

A lot of people were or quote, unquote, fans of her.

They just felt very connected to her because she really tried to give back as much as she could.

She tried to be an encouragement and an inspiration as much as she could, and tried to try to see her life as.

As positively as she could.

So, like, even when she was in the hospital, she would try to go visit other kids and try to cheer them up.

And that was just the kind of person she was.

She knew she was getting toward the end of her life, was looking bleak in that sense.

And she had her parents promise her that they would continue on with some sort of foundation or something nonprofit to encourage young people who were dealing with Crohn's disease.

Because this is a long time ago, dude.

This was about 11 or 12 years ago, okay?

She was dealing with crohn's disease even 10 years before that as a kid, as you can imagine.

And they figured out a lot since then.

But she had a hard time because doctors didn't really know what to do.

They didn't know how to treat things.

They're still figuring a lot of that stuff out.

So she wanted her mom to try to bring awareness, but also help kids like her and give them an easier time of it.

So one of the things they wanted to do for awareness was they wanted to have a children's book.

And they had the title, and they had.

They wanted the main characters or one of the main characters name to be Alex an owl, but that's pretty much all they had.

They had a title, the Mouse who couldn't eat Cheese.

There's a lot of things that people with Crohn's disease can't eat, and they have a lot of problems with their diet and that sort of thing.

Okay.

And so they had the title, and they came to me and they approached me and they said, britt, would you write it?

I was the only author they knew.

Okay?

So it wasn't because I was really that special.

They just knew I wrote books, and they said, would you write this?

And so I saw it as a challenge.

And I like.

Did you spend much time with her?

With Alex?

Not a lot.

I did spend some time with her, but I ended up spending a little bit more time with her mom.

Because when I did agree to write the book, I wanted to know as much as I could.

I wanted to do research, and I really wanted to honor Alex's memory as well as I could but also to bring the right sort of awareness to the story and have the right story and all that sort of stuff.

So I did a lot of research about children's books, how to write one.

A lot of people don't realize children's books are probably the hardest books to write.

Absolutely.

Because you only have between 500 and 1000 words, limited number of pages.

You've got very few words.

And they should be simpler words.

Yes.

So you need to make every word count.

Even, like, that's writing in general.

Right.

You should make every word count.

But even more so in children's literature.

I understood that, and I'm a fan of the classics, where the Wild Things Are.

That's what I grew up with, the classics.

And so I really had a high bar for what I was going to do.

But I really wanted to take on the challenge because I felt.

I'm trying to remember who said it, but there's a famous author that Roald Dahl or somebody that was like, if you just want to write something, write it for adults, but if you want to write it, write it for children or something like that.

If you want a really hard challenge, write for kids.

So I just took that on, and I really prayed a lot about it and really sought a lot of input and tried to get the heart of what I wanted to say.

And I just wrote it one day, and I really felt good about it.

And I got emotional after, when I wrote it and edited it a little bit.

But when I started sharing it with people, they started to get emotional, too, because really, the core of the book is about friendship.

The Crohn's disease piece of it is the issue that these two friends have to deal with.

How do you.

How can you be friends with someone who may be dealing with an issue that makes it difficult, that doesn't make it as easy to be friends with?

And so that's the core of the book.

It's about friendship and being friends with people who have some sort of chronic disease.

And that's what people would get emotional about, because it would remind them of people, kids that they knew who had cancer or, like, all kinds of things, but how they had to reach out and show love to those people.

So it's interesting, and I want to just dig into this a little deeper because I've never heard a children's book author have this approach that you've had where the parents of a child came to you and said, could you write this children's book?

You said you were involved with the mother the most Tell us the experience.

Was she involved when you started writing the book?

Did you read parts of the book to her or share the whole book or tell us that experience?

Because this is definitely different than most children's book authors I've talked to.

Yeah, I didn't share it with her until I finished it.

Okay.

Did you give you ideas or did you sit down with the parents and they said, here's.

Here's some basics behind this, or.

No.

Like I said, they had the idea of the mouse who couldn't eat cheese.

So there was going to be a mouse, gave the mouse a name, and they wanted their.

And they wanted Alex the owl to represent Alex to be kind of part of it.

And her idea, we'll see what happens.

But her idea, too, is to have a series of books about all different kinds of issues that kids go through, where Alex is the main character.

Alex is friends with different animals that have different.

Whatever.

That's awesome.

We'll see what happens.

I. I told the mom, I said, we got to sell a lot of these books first.

That's how focusing works.

So let's talk about that a bit then.

A lot of times, like, I'm now over 40.

Interviews with children's book authors.

And one thing I've started incorporating in the conversation, and it seems very important in this circumstance is tell us a little bit about the business plan for the book.

I know you're an author in a different genre, and so tell us, are you bringing some of that practice over to this book to make it successful?

Yeah, good question.

Yes and no.

What I do with my fiction, because I'm doing teens and above, the actual reader is the audience.

So it's different.

With a children's book, the audience is the parent.

Yeah.

So the grandparent or the grandparents.

So for a children's book, generally speaking, 99.9% of the time, you're selling to an adult who is going to buy this for a child.

And marketing the pitch, as it were, is a little different.

And I really waited.

Like I said, I wrote this book probably 12 years ago, and I talked with and I pitched it several times to several different publishers, and it never got off the ground.

And I wanted it to be with a publisher because I've done self publishing and traditional publishing, but I wanted a publisher because there were so many elements of the children's book market that I didn't know that I wasn't as familiar with.

And so I wanted to partner with a publisher who would get the vision of the book, be passionate about the book be willing to explore or have the opportunities with the medical industry.

For example, I wrote this book to be in a pediatrician's office or in the library or to be read a kindergarten classroom talking about friendship and for awareness.

So there was a lot of those things that I had in mind.

But part of that was how can we engage the medical community for them to get on board?

And so it just took a while to get it, to get to find the right publisher.

Maybe partly because I'm not a children's book author.

It wasn't like that was what I was known for.

I don't know if that's answering question, but that's some of the things.

And I'm not an artist.

So generally speaking, what a publisher can do for me that I couldn't do for myself without spending a lot of money is.

Is finding the right artist, partnering me with the right artists.

And so when I found Yorkshire Publishing and they got a great artist, the art is amazing in this book.

People love the story, they love the book, but they're also just all commenting on how much they love the art.

They Yorkshire.

Are they a traditional publisher?

Yes, they are a traditional publisher, and they had a lot of experience with children's books as well.

There was some elements.

And the.

The owner, when I pitched the book to the owner at the time, he's still the owner, and they just.

They have some more different editors now that I'm working with.

But he had some background in the pediatric er, so he was a doctor who worked in pediatric medicine.

And so he had a passion for the story.

So there was just a lot of things that just happened at the right time after years of trying.

And so did you sit down with them and develop a plan?

So, like, what is their business plan for the book?

Yeah, so part of the plan.

So we didn't exactly come up with a business plan or marketing plan.

We.

We did a little bit, but most of the understanding was to try to get into whatever communities there are around Crohn's disease.

So there is a Crohn's and Colitis foundation.

I've already spoken at a camp for kids with Crohn's and colitis called Camp Twin Lakes.

Right down here.

Camp Oasis is the name of the camp.

And so I've already started to make some inroads there.

And this is one of the ways that Lori, the mom, and her family have been important in this is because they had a lot of connections within that community as well.

And part of what's going to happen with this book.

It just came out.

So you don't get money right away.

That's another business thing.

Right.

People who don't know the book comes out, you might not get paid for.

For whatever copies you sell for another six months or something.

When I do start making money with the book, I'm going to give a portion to Camp Oasis and some of these things, because that's part of the whole purpose behind it was to help kids like Alex was.

And so, no, so there wasn't a firm sort of idea, but they have a little bit of a marketing team.

And so they've gotten it out in some different ways and they've done a good job, man.

It hit number one the first week in all three categories on Amazon.

Nice.

Now, is it also in the traditional bookstores?

It's not in many traditional bookstores yet.

I have a couple connections with Barnes and Noble trying to get them in there.

And it's going to be in some independent book bookstores around.

But that's part of the plan, is to try to get it into libraries and bookstores along the way for you.

So tell us a little bit about the illustrator, because the illustrations are great.

They're a lot of fun.

So talk to us about that whole journey with the illustrator, because you're coming at it from a different genre now.

You're into a children's illustrating world.

So tell us about that.

Yeah, so when I was a kid, I was totally into comic books, too.

As if I wasn't into enough things.

I was told I was totally a comic book kid.

Science fiction, fantasy, superheroes, all this, all that stuff.

So the art portion, obviously any children's book author is going to think the art portion is important, but I really wanted the art to look great and.

And have a great style to it.

And yeah, we just.

So she's not on the COVID of the book because she's not getting.

They just paid her outright, so they just commissioned her.

She did a great job.

There was a couple different people that we had to choose from, and the publisher and I, we both picked her.

And so, yeah, so she did a great job.

I asked that, too, is that you've mentioned that there's a hope that this will turn into a book series.

So can you go back to that illustrator or would you give them.

Yeah, that's a great question.

There's.

It's not a guarantee, let's put it that way.

But part of it will be if there are other books to try to get at least a similar style at least.

Okay, that's.

There was a lot of.

We wanted the forest look, the organic sort of look to it and it has a really classic look to it.

It's done a great job.

Because you're coming at this, like I said, I think the audience will find this very fascinating because you're coming at it from a different approach than it than a indie or self published children's book author because of all the dynamic pieces that have been involved and you bringing the book to life.

And I noticed when I went to your website because I thought, okay, let's find out more about Brit.

And that's when I realized I then holy jumping.

Like this is a, this is this genre.

This guy has very successful on one side.

And all of a sudden this children's book comes out of like nowhere left field.

And I was thinking, whoa, so what's the intention?

Because you probably don't want to drive them to your website.

So what's the intention?

Is there an intention to build out a website for this children's book or.

Well, yeah, that's part of the thought process is right now I'm pushing people to Amazon or Barnes and Noble or Bookstop or the publisher's website.

I'm pushing people to those sites more than my own website.

If it's successful enough that there's going to be other books, then my plan is to either do a separate website for children's books because like most authors, I have a lot of ideas.

Even besides the like this series, I have other ideas.

Sure.

And, and that's a curse for a creative person.

There's way more ideas than I have ability to do.

But with a couple successful books and a successful series, I would probably either do like a page on my website dedicated to children's books or just do a.

Put up a different website where people could just for sure didn't have to look at me killing dragons on the website to get to the children's books.

Absolutely.

And that's what we did.

My co authors are my five grandchildren and our first book, which is the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear, we decided to dedicate to it as a book series and develop our own website around Caboose.

Everybody takes their own approach for sure.

So that's why I asked you.

The neat thing about it is that a lot of people ask me, did your website come first or did your book.

And in our case they tell you you should have your website before your book.

But we had our book before our website.

But the positive thing is we were able to use a lot of the artwork like you could from our first book.

And that made a big difference in how our website is starting to look.

And now we've got our second book coming out shortly and we're able to use some of that artwork too.

So at least with the.

With your first children's book, you already have that feel.

And so what your website could look like and it's totally different from what your current author website looks like.

Yeah.

And to me, part of the point of doing a website and this is total business marketing sort of stuff.

And I don't know if you've done this with your website or not.

There's also merch that you could sell.

Right.

T shirts or you could do little stuffed animals based on the characters, or there's all sorts of little things you.

Said that you could do because right behind.

There it is.

There it is.

Okay.

So actually know that saying, coming on the slow boat from China.

Have you ever heard that saying?

Guess what?

Our caboose plushies are on the slow boat from China.

They're on their way.

So we hope to see them by the end of July.

So you're absolutely right.

And I have to say one other thing just to share this with our audience.

I was talking to one of our guests and she has a really cool logo and a big part of her sourcing revenue to help her support her children's book authorship is T shirts.

That's where she makes her most margin and that's what she sells more of, to your point, through the website.

Again, we'll see what happens.

But so far, especially among the adults who have read it, obviously they're surprised that I wrote it.

Obviously most of the adults that I know, who know me, who know what I write otherwise.

Yes.

Are just.

They're just blown away on how great it is.

They're just, this is amazing, the fact that you could do this while you also, again, cut the heads off of monsters and other books.

But now you're doing this and.

But again, to me, I've learned so much about story in the past 10, 15 years.

Just what is a story and what makes a story good?

That I really enjoyed making it something more simple that really could communicate to kids and could communicate to adults something very important, which is making space for each other.

There's a lot going on in this world where we're not really making space for each other as much as we used to.

I don't think.

And I think that we.

To include more people, we have to learn those principles or teach our kids those principles.

Not everybody's going to be like you, but make space for each other and find ways, find some common ground, find some things you.

That you can connect on and make friends instead of enemies and tell stories instead of argue.

These are the sort of principles that I think are.

I think our world needs to learn, but especially in America and maybe Canada too.

Yes.

Out there, but.

And that's.

That does a whole lot more for the world, I think.

Absolutely.

In the long run.

Absolutely.

You said earlier I love the idea of taking Alex and incorporating more stories about certain situations.

I think that's very admirable.

It's a great thing to do.

Now, I want to talk to you a little bit about.

Because I know we're talking about website, but I want to talk to you about your social media because I had to look at your Instagram and I just about fell on the floor.

Now, I know you're not a rock star, even though I see a guitar in the background, but I noticed you had 4,472 followers on Instagram.

I need to go behind the curtain a bit with Brit and find out how did you get to that type of growth and then how are you using that number of followers to support the children's book?

Or are you?

I'm not as much.

I am.

And I think that there's some overlap, but yeah, and I've got a certain number of email addresses as well.

But yeah.

So I built a little bit more of an audience in the beginning on purpose.

I tried to build a little bit bigger audience When I first got on Instagram and Facebook, I've got a decent amount of followers, but Instagram and Facebook has become a pay to play sort of place.

And so it's really difficult to develop and maintain that sort of audience on Instagram.

Unless you're really popular, you're getting a lot of engagements.

So I've definitely shared and gotten some good responses on my Instagram and Facebook and things like that.

My author pages, I've gotten a little bit better, I think, response just personally, just because people who know me know that I'm a family guy and I have my own kids.

And so it's a little more of a crossover there.

Fortunately, the publisher did a good job getting it out to a couple influencers and people on Instagram that gave me some really cute, good posts to share and that sort of thing.

But it is.

It is something I'm aware of.

Yeah, this is totally.

Again, not that my Instagram was ever not kid Friendly in a certain sense, but it wasn't four kids I was sharing about movies and books I'm reading and my writing and that sort of thing.

The children's book is a little different, but I've gotten some good response.

But I'm not as actively trying to push it on my social media.

I wanted people understand because when I.

Like I said to you, I was very impressed with over 4400 followers.

And that's one of the things that you're.

Everybody's trying to find a way to get their message out and.

And if you have that large of a following, it's nice to be able to use that.

I want to get into character development, Alex and Maya and where the idea of them originated.

Just tell us a bit more on those characters development.

You know, you were given the idea by the parents, but now tell us how did you develop the characters?

And like you asked earlier, that's really all they gave me, was there's going to be a mouse that can't eat cheese, and there's Alex the owl, who's going to be the guide through the story, in a sense.

And this is the title.

And.

But the more that I talked with Alex's mom, you know, because I just asked her a lot of questions.

What was it like going through all the hospital visits?

What.

I just asked her a lot of questions about what her life was like growing up.

What were some of the things that she struggled with.

And one of the things that Laurie kept coming back to was how difficult it was to maintain friendships because plans would have to get canceled because she had to go to the hospital or she wasn't feeling good that day or was in a lot of pain, or there's a lot of these sort of things.

And so really, in a lot of ways, and Alex herself, as I said before, was an inspiration.

She wanted to inspire people.

She wanted to help people.

She wanted to reach out to people.

So really, here's a spoiler.

Okay, Here's a little secret.

On your show alone, I've never said this publicly.

Both of these characters are Alex.

They're just a different part of her.

Right?

Both of these characters are her.

And so that's why.

So for me, to some degree, for the Alex character, I wanted to show her frustration because I wanted to validate that.

Trying to have a friend who then cancels plans and those.

To validate, that's frustrating, right?

And.

But also take the Alex character through that arc, that character arc of how do I overcome this frustration and still show love and Acceptance and be friends with someone who is having a legitimate issue.

And.

But then also how important it was to reveal what that issue was, and so how important it was for Maya to be vulnerable and to.

So she had to go through her own arc of.

Instead of just saying, I don't feel good today.

I can't make it have to explain, I'm so sorry I couldn't eat your present with the cheese or whatever it was, apologize, but then say, here's what's going on.

Because there's that cliche that everyone's fighting a battle.

You just don't know about it.

Everyone's dealing with something.

And so often we don't ask those sort of questions.

We just.

Something happens.

And so we just.

We make assumptions instead of asking like, hey, man, what's really going on?

Is there something wrong?

Is something happening?

You know what?

And usually when we find out about those things, compassion shows up.

We're not mad at them anymore.

There's more understanding happening now.

And I love that technique that you're talking about, Britt, because it's actually, in a way, it's saying people get to.

And I'm glad you shared this.

You're looking at it through eyes, and each of us have different eyes.

In this case, the character or the two main characters are the same eyes, but they're looking at it from different points of view.

Again, for aspiring children's book authors, great technique.

And again, there's a great reason to support Britt's children's book.

Just what you just shared.

That's a great technique.

So I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Let's dig a little deeper into the theme.

Talk a bit more about.

You're dealing with a. I don't want to say touchy, but it's a disease that ultimately took Alex away from us.

Talk to us a bit more about how you handled that.

How I handled just dealing with her death or just the topic in general?

Just the topic.

Again, to give aspiring authors.

This is not an easy subject to talk about because ultimately it could lead to death.

So talk to us about that.

Yeah, so I didn't want the story to be informational.

I didn't want the whole story to be describing and telling people what Crohn's disease is.

I didn't want that.

There are children's books that do stuff like that.

I just didn't want to write that kind of.

To me, the kind of books that are what we call Evergreen or that last are the kind of books that deal with something universal, no matter what the topic is.

So even though we might be talking about a specific thing, really the stories that last are really not about Star wars lasts.

Not because there's lightsabers in the Death Star.

It really lasts because you're dealing with leaving home and rebelling against tyranny.

And there's in friendship, there's all sorts of other things that if people know the background of Star wars that George Lucas put in there on purpose, this is what makes stories great across time.

He put those elements in there.

And so that's what I tried to do with this book, was really make it about again, making space for each other as friends and being friends with people and learning how to do it in a different way.

And even we haven't talked about this, but I thought it was a very.

Even though I didn't come up with mouse and owl.

Owls eat mice.

Right.

I'm just saying, okay, as I'm doing this, as I was doing this, I was like, there's a sort of idyllic sort of idealism of a peaceful world where enemies can be friends.

Yes.

I mean, there's a symbolism in it that I thought was really important.

And that's a beautiful thing about children's books, because if you look at our books, and again, I just want to pick up on what you're saying, is that at the very beginning of our book, our first book, you'll notice that there's people, there's animals, It's a community living in the Rocky Mountains.

And to your point is that's the beautiful thing about a children's book, is you.

Can you have the literary license to do whatever you want?

Oh, sure.

It's neat that you develop this relationship between a mouse and owl.

Yeah.

And one of the things I had to learn, and this happened in editing, because I came up with the whole story, everything about the story, the characters.

Like that was.

The basics were there.

But I really developed all of that.

And when I did share it with Lori, the final version, she was very appreciative of it and thought it was great, perfect, everything, which made me feel good.

But one of the things I learned was how to let the pictures tell the story, too.

Because to a kid, the pictures you don't have to describe.

This is where I think some children's authors go wrong and where I went wrong.

My first draft was, you don't have.

You don't have to describe the picture in the story.

Let the picture be part of the story, because that's what kids will do.

Absolutely.

That's what we all do.

And you just have to learn some of those things along the way and humble yourself and learn.

But that's why the art is so important, because the art is going to help with the tone and it's going to help with the feeling and the mood and all of those things.

And that's another way I think the artist did a great job.

There was a couple.

There's just a couple images in here that you're like, man, she did.

She just captured the heart of what was happening.

That mention is there in the words, but it's just brought to life in such a great way.

Yeah.

And that's so true, because in our book, we don't mention mention on the first page.

We've got this huge community of people and animals.

We don't.

Nowhere in the words on the first page with the illustration does it say, oh, animals and humans live together.

We just plunk them all together.

And the child's going to go, oh, that's pretty cool.

I have to tell you, my granddaughter, she had a stuffy that was a rabbit, and she had a stuffy that was a bear, and they were brother and sister.

Because in a child's mind, that didn't matter.

That one was a rabbit and one was a bear.

No.

And that's the amazing thing about kids is, man, I could talk about this forever.

But one of the amazing thing about kids is they're experiencing the world for the first time.

Absolutely.

If you give a kid a book where animals and people talk to each other and they live in the same whatever.

Okay.

That's the world that's like, they're in.

They might ask questions, but we have to educate that creativity out of kids.

Right.

Like in the beginning, kids are like, I don't care if the bear is purple.

Who cares if he's purple?

It's a purple bear.

And how many of us.

How many of us as children talk to our stuffies?

And how many of us.

How often do you think I talk to Caboose right behind me?

Oh, sure.

Yeah.

And people are thinking, you talk to your stuffy.

Why not?

We're children's book authors.

You never know.

You never know.

Exactly.

I want to talk to you about your writing process, because unless you wanted to add a little bit more to the central teaching in the book, I'm getting the sense of that.

We got a good feel for that.

I know you talked to us about your journey, about the writing process and over the last 12 years and bringing the book to life.

And now you're talking about?

Possibly.

It depends how well the book does.

Turning it into a series.

So have you kept.

Are you writing more in the book series, or are you waiting to see about the success of the book before you write anymore?

Yeah, I'm not.

I haven't written anything.

There's a basic idea that I'm just brainstorming and going over in my head.

Okay, you know what?

What would.

What.

Because for me, the process is, what am I?

What I am?

What's the theme?

What am I saying through this book?

I don't want it to sound like it's like just a moral necessarily, but.

But what's the heart of this book going to be about?

What's the heart of this story going to be about?

And just playing around with that, because once I have that, I write a book really quickly.

Okay.

Because the story becomes uniform, it becomes united.

It flows.

Like when you know what your book is about.

And I don't mean like an owl and a mouse.

When you really know that your book.

Oh, this book is about being friends with people.

Sometimes when it's difficult to be friends, like, when you know what it's about, then you go, oh, like, now I can write it.

And so that's the process for me.

Just really for the next book, I have an idea of what it might be about.

As far as the issue.

This one was about Crohn's disease or just, okay, what's the next one gonna be about?

Okay, but.

But what I'm looking for is what's a heart that anybody can relate to?

What's the heart in it that even people without Crohn's disease or whatever the next issue is will all connect.

Universal message.

So what's the universal.

That's human that every human deals with?

This, because that.

Here's why that's important to me, is because whether it's Crohn's disease or whether it's whatever other issue that a child might have, we're all human.

Yeah.

It doesn't change you from.

It doesn't.

You're still part of the human race in that sense.

And so to try to humanize all people in that sense, that's why you have to.

That's why for me, I have to look for those universal themes, because I don't care if you have a disability or if you have Crohn's disease.

Like, you still want the same things in life, for sure.

You still want to be seen, you want to be heard, you want to have friends, you want to be connected.

You want to be.

All of that stuff is just.

That's human.

And so to me, it's harder.

What can I show that's sort of universal thing in the next book?

That's really.

That's where I am now with it.

Okay.

When the publisher comes to me and says, we're ready for another book, that's a great problem to have.

Talk to us a little bit more.

I know I talked to you about the business book plan, but I'd like to really delve a little bit deeper into how you had originally thought of the success of this book.

And how has that really unveiled itself?

What's different from what you were expecting?

That's a good question.

Nothing really that different.

I'm a little surprised that it hit number one on Amazon in that first week.

I know we had some pre orders, not a lot, and that that can contribute to that.

But again, it hasn't surprised me there.

There have been a couple connections that I didn't realize I had, and I don't know if that makes sense, but sometimes a pastor friend of mine used to say, what's a good vision?

When other people want to get involved, you don't have to sell it.

You just have to say, this is what it is and this is what I'm doing.

And people go, I want to be a part of that.

How can I be a part of that?

And so as people, your friends and just people on your social network, you start talking and my wife starts talking, and people start talking to people who we know and are close to, been friends with for years.

And they're like, oh, I have connections in the pediatric world.

Maybe I could.

And they're thinking of ways to help share the book.

And I didn't.

Maybe if I was smarter, I would have done that.

I would have been like, more strategic about that sort of stuff.

But that's part of what surprised me is some of the open doors and opportunities that have come up that I wasn't expecting just from me being excited and because all I can really do is make it as good as I can make it.

Okay.

Okay.

That's ultimately because then if there are opportunities, the book will go somewhere.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And.

But that's been a big surprise for me.

And a pleasant surprise is that people are like, hey, I've got connections in this world.

I didn't know they had connections in that world.

Whatever medical industry.

It is funny sometimes just the simple act of asking how it can translate into something special.

Absolutely.

And yeah.

And that's.

And we're getting into that mode now.

It's been out for a couple weeks and we've started to ask some people because people text me, I just got the book.

This is amazing.

I was like.

And there's a quick ask, like, will you please put a review on Amazon?

I just like, every little thing helps.

It's going to take you a minute or two, but as this stuff accumulates.

Right?

Yeah.

Then more people will see and hear about it.

Absolutely.

I'm trying to come at this a little differently only because I normally ask people their role in writing.

And you've explained in terms of the children's book that you've come at this a little differently and you've parked an idea of where you'd like to take the second book, if there is a second book.

Are you devoting any extra time to this or have you gone back to writing in the genre that you're writing in?

The answer is yes to both.

Yes.

So I'm still working in fantasy.

I wrote a little bit this morning on my latest rough draft, just going through that.

But I am spending extra time on the mouse book because I'm doing a book signing next weekend.

There's going to be some other events that have popped up that we're still finalizing some details on.

Just some great opportunities for me to do some book signings, do an event, get up in front of people.

And I'm inviting Alex's mom because she lives close, right down the street.

So I'm inviting her to as many of those as she can go to.

And, and.

And all that sort of stuff.

So.

So yes, definitely spending some extra time, again, just seeing what kind of opportunities there are and then just trying to position the book as well as I can for success.

Yeah, for sure.

Okay.

And it's.

It's neat, you wearing two genre hats and how you came to the children's book authorship.

I think this is a very fascinating story for people.

So what kind of advice would you have for aspiring authors?

What would you say to them?

So of any kind, just any kind of author?

I'm primarily thinking of children's book authors.

But because you're writing in two different genres, if you want to broaden that, that's great.

So people understand you don't have to get.

Like you said earlier, you don't have to get shoved into one particular genre box.

You can get beyond that.

A couple things if you're an aspiring author.

First of all, just get in a routine where you're writing.

Not every day has to be something you'll keep.

But get in a routine where you are writing on a regular basis, preferably every day.

And I know that sounds like a lot to people.

So writers write.

That's what we do.

Yes.

And if you say you're a writer, but the last thing you wrote was two years ago.

Okay, that's.

That's.

It might have been great, but just write.

Even if it's because that's where you start to learn your voice.

That's how you develop your voice.

Second thing is to read a lot.

Because here's what happens with aspiring authors sometimes is they'll say, I want to be a children's book author.

I think I'd be a great children's book author.

Sometimes I'll ask, what's your favorite children's book that you've read in the last month?

And they'll say, oh, I haven't read a children's book in years.

Like it?

Like, no, the library is your friend.

Go to the library and they have.

Sitting out the latest children's books.

Yeah.

Trying to get people to read.

Take a couple, read them, study them.

What.

How did.

What did I like about this?

What did I not.

What did I not like about this?

Be a critical reader in that sense.

Yes.

What.

And.

Or if it's a werewolf book.

Like, how many books about werewolves have you read?

Read?

Oh, I don't really read that.

Get into the genre you want to read.

What's happening.

Who are the players and the.

Who are the authors that are making noise or doing something unique and different?

And then look at what you like.

And then the third thing I'll say is learn to love the process.

And that's sort of cliche.

Ish ranks.

But I don't care who you are.

A great idea without executing it doesn't mean anything.

People pay for stuff that's done right.

They pay for stuff that's finished.

And so you have to learn to love the hard parts.

In between having a great idea and writing the rough draft and editing the.

Editing it once, twice, three, four times, getting people to read it, making more changes.

Like, having this finished product took 11 years.

Like, it takes time and a process.

And a lot of writers and creatives, just, this is who we are.

We love the idea.

That's what we get excited about.

And in our head, we want to see that finished product.

But it takes a lot of work and sweat and tears and blood and whatever other cliche you want to put in there.

It takes a lot of work and patience to get there.

And it's not just whether it feels good.

It's is you have to just apply yourself when it doesn't feel good.

Michael Jordan didn't become a champion because he played basketball when he felt like it.

He applied himself when it.

When he wasn't feeling good because he had a goal in mind.

And that's something that I think a lot of creatives need to learn.

I find, even for ourselves, that they say the first one is the hardest.

It's true.

And that's what I found with bringing our first book to market and I.

And talking to others.

It's the same kind of thing.

Our second book came quick.

Much, much quicker.

Oh, sure.

Yeah.

Because you know the process and you know that if you stick with it, you'll get there.

Yeah.

It'll.

It's like you just.

Brett, what you just did, you held up the finished product in your hand.

We can see the tangible product.

And you're like, oh, and you stumble a lot with your first one.

Yes.

You make a lot of mistakes.

You stumble.

Like I said, I had to learn.

Oh.

Because someone who was a children's book author read it and was like, you don't have to tell me what's in the picture.

Yes.

If that's going to be in the picture, you're just wasting words.

I had to stumble my way through learn.

And I try to learn something big every time that I write something I love.

You just.

You just try to learn as you go.

But then, like you're saying in the second one, now you've got stuff you learned because you made mistakes and you stumbled around a little bit.

And now, now it can go a little faster.

So we've talked about aspiring authors.

Now I want to talk about you.

Were you mentioned earlier, is that when it comes to children's books, you really have to talk to two segments.

You've got to talk to the children as the reader, but you also have to talk to the parent or the grandparent as the purchaser and possibly the reader.

So talk to us about what kind of encouragement do you have for those two segments of readers?

Children's book readers.

Why should they buy your book?

Absolutely.

Just buy my book.

Yeah.

Just use my book as a model.

Here are the children's books that last.

Okay.

Yes.

That sell millions of copies.

And this is what I tried to do in mine and I think to some degree successfully.

But you want to have a children's book that both the parent or grandparent and the kid get something out of it.

Right.

That because you're not Just writing for one or the other.

You're writing for both.

Because the books that make a million dollars or whatever sell a million copies are the books that the kid brings back to the parent.

Read this one again.

Because any of us who have had little kids, they will read the same book, they will watch the same show, the same movie over and over again.

I don't know how many times when my son was about 4 or 5 years old, we watched Cars from Pixar.

We watched that movie like we could have watched it every day.

If it's something the kid loves, the kid will.

Will bring it to you.

I want to read this one again.

And they'll memorize it.

But it also has to be the kind of book parent gets something from as well because you don't want the parent to become annoyed and bored when they're reading.

Should make them laugh.

If you give a mouse a cookie or something like one of those books that like.

I enjoy reading it.

Even though it's the 50th time, it's still clever, it's still cute.

It's got good art and it makes sense.

And you know that.

Yeah, for sure.

Because what we found with our book is that first of all, I've had several parents tell me that their kids run around the house going caboose, caboose.

Because they like the word caboose.

And if you think the caboose disappeared from the end of the train about 20 years ago, and yet it's like reintroducing the word to the English language through.

And the other thing that we did is because my co author, her first name is Kira Era, which starts with a K, we.

We started caboose with a K rather than a C. Got it.

And that's the reason that all happened.

But like you said, it's something that people can hook onto.

And then adults, they love the idea of the engineering outfit because a lot of people still have a passion about the days of trains.

So.

Sure.

Anyways.

Absolutely.

So I couldn't agree.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Final thoughts I'm really interested in.

Is there something that you said?

I wish Rick would have asked me that question.

Is there something that you'd like to share that I may have missed?

Man, No.

I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

Yeah.

Just encouraging people to.

Just to read with their kids.

Even if it's not my book.

Read with your kids.

I couldn't agree with you more.

You can't.

I don't know that anybody will ever.

I don't Know anyone who's ever regretted reading too much of their kids?

No.

No one's ever thought, man, I just read to my kids too much.

I think so much now.

I'm talking like a teacher.

But there's so much data out there on the correlation between loving reading and being successful in school and life.

And because if you love to read, even when you're out of school, you'll still be learning things.

You'll still.

If you love to read, it's not a chore whether you're in school or whether you're 50 years old and you decide, I want to learn something new, you know, so you'll discover things.

So, yeah, read with your kids.

Connect with your kids through reading and learning and help them to see this is a lifelong thing.

Yeah.

And read in front of your kids.

Let kids see you reading things, just not to them.

Right.

This is important to you.

And one of the techniques that we've used is we've written 38 stories in our book series.

And so, of course, we're not multimillionaires, so we can't turn them all into print books overnight.

One thing that we can do, and the narrators of Be My Grandchildren, we've turned about half of them into audiobooks.

Oh, nice.

And that's.

And that's allowed what I call a unique editing tip, because when they're reading the story, if the word's too difficult, we end up changing it to match the age.

Ah, yeah, that's good.

Yeah.

So there you go, a little sharing.

You know what?

It's an old.

It's an old trick.

It's an old trick that they teach you in school.

Read it out loud.

And if it.

And if you stumble over the words, reading it out loud, then change it.

Isn't that the truth?

Britt, I want to thank you so much for being a guest on the Adventures in the heart of Children's book Authors.

Your generosity of time and your insights and what you shared.

I just love having the guests on because there's always something special that every children's book author brings.

A different perspective, a different reason, a different motivation.

So I really appreciate that.

We promise to provide the audience with Britt's Instagram page and other social media links, including his website.

Even though it'll be nice because you'll get to see a different side of Brit, and I think that's so important, and you should support Britt with his other books.

If you've enjoyed this episode, please hit the subscribe button to listen to our future episodes.

And feel free to share this episode with anyone who you think would be inspired or enjoys hearing about Britt and his children's book, the Mouse who Couldn't Eat Cheese.

Thank you, Brit.

Thanks, man.

I appreciate it.