Hello, I am Shannon Chersky, and my book is Joy in the Big Balloon Catastrophe.

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

As Shannon's mentions, he's written a children's book, Joy and the Big Balloon Catastrophe.

I love that title.

I love how you did that.

Thank you.

And I look forward to our conversation.

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

It's been quite an adventure, and the last year, it's just really come into.

Everything's just come together.

And I'm very new at this.

I just released my book on September 4th, and so I actually got a letter from my hometown library in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and we haven't lived there in 20 years.

And when I got the letter saying that's where it was from, my first instinct was doing my, oh, well, fine from 30 years ago.

And then I was like, wait, I wrote a children's book?

So maybe it has something to do with that.

And so I don't have a full graph grasp of the concept quite yet because it is new.

Somebody had purchased one of my books, and they have a foundation that you can put a book in the library.

An old friend of our family had done that, and they sent a letter, and so that was quite exciting.

But it's still new and hasn't set in that I am a children's book author yet.

I want to tell the audience this is incredible.

Shannon today advised me that she's listened to all 51 episodes of Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors.

And I couldn't be more flabbergasted and excited and appreciative of you doing that.

And one of our episodes, we had Tanya acquiesta episode 14 from New York, and she has written a book called Money Time.

Very cute book.

When I went to her social media profiles, I noticed she didn't have children's book authors attached to her profiles.

Now, that was one of the questions I asked her.

I asked her why it was so new to her.

She never really let it sink in that she was a children's book author.

Fifteen minutes after we got off the podcast interview, she sent me a message and she said, okay, now I challenge you to go to all my social media sites and you will see that I announced that I'm a children's book author.

That interview is.

That went on the checklist of something I needed to add.

Oh, fantastic.

Thank you so much.

It's really great.

And congratulations on being a newly published children's book author.

Thank you.

So tell us the origin story, the inspiration behind your book.

So cute.

Thanks.

Around the pandemic, we started trying to find ideas of things to do in the classroom that were a little bit different.

And there actually is a book about the Macy's Day parade for Thanksgiving that a lot of teachers started reading.

And it tells the whole story.

It's a great book.

And it goes over the whole story of the Thanksgiving balloon parade that's in New York City.

And I started reading it to the class and the idea is then you get balloons and the kids decorate.

They decorate the balloons and they bring them in and then you have a little balloon parade at school.

And so we started doing that and it was such a hit and the parents just loved.

Some of them had great big creations and some of them had smaller creations.

And you could tell the ones where the parents did a lot of it or the kids did a lot of it and they would come in and they'd have such pride.

And we would march by all the other classrooms of the younger kids and then we would go outside and our parents all stand up.

The church that I work at has a big front staircase and so all the classes come out and the four year old classes and we all sit on the staircase and then the parents can take all the pictures.

And every year we've had a little bit bigger grouping.

And the behind this story is last year it's a balloon.

And so we do have the parade at 9:15 in the morning so that it's a balloon, it could pop.

And one of the little boys, his younger sister was down the hall and they dropped the younger sister off and the little boy's balloon, it hit and when it hit, then it popped.

And the mom came to the door and she was just holding the pieces of his little broken balloon.

And a deer was coming down the mom's eye.

The son wasn't as upset, but the sweet little mom just standing there, of course we're prepared.

We have extra balloons on hand.

And so we quick blew up another balloon and we taped on his pieces from that had fallen off of his balloon.

And it's Thanksgiving, so then it's crazy.

And then about January, the teacher across the hall and I were just talking and we were like, we need a book, we need something.

And so I got to work and started writing the story.

And one of the things that you ask a lot of is how the names came about.

And so I had already had an online business where I sell products on a website called Teachers Pay Teachers.

And so I already had the business name and I already had my store and it's Joy and Sunshine Collective.

And when I first came up with that four years ago, I didn't really know what the collection would be.

But now it's come.

When I was naming the characters in the story, I thought I need to keep them on brand.

So the little girl is Joy and her cat is Sunny.

How they stay on brand.

And it's amazing.

And we'll talk more about it.

Get into this.

So I'm interested because just so our audience understands, I always look for differences because we're all different.

And one of the things that I noticed with Shannon, Shannon, you probably heard me say this 51 times is I talk to people about their website and I always ask them, did you develop your website before or after you brought your children's book to market?

In Shannon's case, what's amazing is, is as she mentioned, you've had your website for four years.

So it wasn't to support your book, it was support your business.

And then along came your book.

So let's talk a little bit about your website and your business and then we'll segue into how that's transformed into your children's book and your children's book business.

So talk to us first about your business.

In 2019 was a very hard year for my family.

My father passed away suddenly from a heart attack.

And then about eight months later, my husband's father had a stroke and he survived.

And it was my husband had to travel a lot back to Pittsburgh to help with family stuff.

And so that year was just a very hard year for us.

And then going into 2020, my son was about to graduate college and he had his grown up job.

A little side note on that that I think that you'll enjoy is that when he was doing his co op in college, he actually for three months got to live in a caboose.

Oh, really?

Yeah, his now boss, he gave me permission to tell this little story on here.

His now boss, he was doing a co op and he made it housing.

And so his boss has a big piece of property and he has an old caboose on it that has been turned into.

It's the caboose part, has the beds in it and the kitchen, and then they've built like a building on the front of it that has the living room and dining room and bathroom.

And so he got to live in the caboose for a little bit.

So he thought you'd like.

That's terrific.

I thought he would enjoy that.

So he was going to be graduating in May and starting his grand grown up job.

And then my daughter had gotten engaged to her high school sweetheart and they were getting married in July of 2020 as the pandemic hit.

We were coming out of the sad year and then we were having this fun time that was coming around and I just was truly going to be an empty nester and processing that my kids were actually when they're in college, they come home.

They still are there for holidays and summers, but they were both going to just be totally out on their own and probably not home again.

And I've been a preschool teacher for 24 years and so looking back, it was what else is my story?

What else is there?

And so I started Joy and Sunshine to bring me happiness one to bring my joy back.

And then also I am the kind of teacher that likes as my classroom is sunny and sunshiny and I'm just a very happy person and I just absolutely love teaching and I came up with Joy and Sunshine Collective.

And then Teachers Pay Teachers like I said is a website that you can.

I make PDFs and so I have bulletin boards and chapel lessons and Alphabet headbands and just all different resources.

I have 165 resources that are on there that teachers can go in and you download it.

And then so I started doing that.

So I developed the website and question.

For you on the teachers paying teachers.

I'm curious, is it a two way street?

In other words, do you have teachers submit resources that you sell on your website also?

No, I don't sell anything on my website.

It's all through like all different teachers load their stuff onto that Teachers Pay teachers website.

And so my resources are just on there.

Oh, those are all yours?

Yes, there's probably a million.

It's like Etsy for teachers.

Okay.

Okay, great.

I know.

I just tried to understand the business model and how teachers were paying teachers.

Some teachers will buy your stuff and you'll get paid and sometimes you'll buy some of their stuff and they'll get paid.

Yes.

Okay.

No, that's terrific.

That's a.

What a nice way of sharing and supporting each other.

Yeah, and it's great because they take care of all the finances.

I just loaned it and then it's passive income.

Because the one thing I like about Teachers Pay teachers that Amazon doesn't do is anytime you have a sale, my phone Will go cha ching and tell me that I made a sale on something.

That's cool.

Yeah, I wish that they would do that when you sold a book.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

I love it.

So then I started the website, and it was wonky.

And I'm the kind of person that figures everything out.

I'm just constantly watching YouTube videos of how to do things.

And then I started Instagram and I started Facebook and everything.

And so that's been going great, and I love doing that.

And it really gave me a good foundation to take on the children's book, because I have to search for keywords of what to name a product, or you have to make a cover and you have to take pictures of your product and get it all loaded, and you have to load the COVID and.

You have to figure out about that for a minute.

Let's segue from your website that you've had for four years and how you've been able to utilize it.

I love how, like you said, again, kept it on brand.

I don't think a lot of times people understand that you are building a brand.

And I love what you did because you actually took the name of your business and then incorporated the two main characters in your book from your core business.

Talk to us about the whole children's book development, and then we'll talk about how you then put that onto your website.

I know that a lot of guests that you have on talk about whether they're indie or whether they use a hybrid publisher.

And I know there's some very popular ones.

And I'm a frugalista.

I'm cheap.

I like that.

That's great terminology.

There's decisions we make that are treating it like a hobby and treating it like a business and then also getting it done versus having it sit here.

Absolutely.

And so to get through that, I just needed.

Everything's figureoutable.

Right.

And so I found somebody on YouTube.

And can I say, is it okay.

To say, oh, yeah, you know what?

We'd like to share everything so that if someone says, oh, I'd like to do what Shannon did, and if you're happy, it's like an endorsement, and then someone can do that.

Yeah.

So her name is Evie Jones, and she has so many YouTube videos that I could not have gone through the process without those YouTube videos.

I wouldn't have been able to figure everything out.

And just so you know, I actually, one of the first things I did even before I wrote a children's book is I bought Evie Jones's book.

Oh, okay, so I know who you're talking about.

So shout out to Evie Jones.

Yes.

When it came to formatting with 29 video playlists and I just went through and spent a week formatting her website and everything just really guided me through.

Through it and view a lot of credit because that's a big undertaking.

I think because I had that foundation from my other stuff, then I felt confident that I was able to figure it out on my own.

You're truly an indie book publisher.

Yes.

And it's illustrating.

I come from an artistic background.

I've just always done.

Art's just been a part of me.

My grandmother, if you want another little side story.

My grandmother, when she graduated art school, she worked in a little town at a department store, and her job was to draw whatever was for sale that would run in the newspaper.

So they would bring her fur coat and she would draw a fur coat and then they'd bring her shoes and she would draw the shoes and.

And then it would appear in the newspaper.

And I think I got my artistic abilities.

I have a lot in my family.

So I want to make sure people understand you're truly an independent children's book author.

What did you name your publishing company or did you even.

Do you have a publishing.

I think that I just used my name.

Okay.

I probably could have used Julian Sun.

Giant Collective, but yeah, you say stay on brand.

You might have to do that.

And the other interesting part is I have to talk to you about is you did all the illustrations.

I did.

You're the illustrator.

So there was a guest I had on Krishana Greer episode 44.

And if you remember, Krishana was the illustrator.

And I asked her, why didn't you give yourself credit as the illustrator?

And again, it was something similar to what we went through with Tanya Acquiesta.

She never really thought about that.

That is incredible skill.

So why haven't you given.

I put by.

And then where the.

On the inside of the book where the copyright and everything is it.

I did put it there.

Okay.

So it does say that it was written and ill illustrated.

If you get a chance, I would just add that on because that is such a.

Your front cover.

Yeah.

I wouldn't keep it a secret because you know what?

I'm not sure how many people are.

It's not like the old days where you read the back of a cereal box because now what have you got?

You got your iPad, but yes.

You know what?

When you've got a skill like that, Shannon, now this is just my opinion.

I'D make sure I was shouting that from the rooftop.

Because you've done a beautiful job with your illustrations.

Thank you.

And I think it's when you're first starting, you don't know where it's going to take you.

And I wasn't sure how I was going to figure it out.

And my son was actually.

He was.

He said, mom, you need to use Procreate.

And so I said, okay, I'll figure out Procreate.

And I found that somebody else on YouTube that has videos and you.

And therefore commercial use.

You can watch her videos on her website.

She sells the brushes and some things that like textures to make something look like blue jeans or whatever.

And so you can buy those brushes and you are allowed to use them commercially.

And so I would just follow a lot of how she did it.

But I didn't want my stuff to look like I didn't hire her.

I would have loved to have hired her to just.

But I figured it out and at the end of it, my daughter actually said, mom, the hard part is keeping it consistent through the whole book.

Yeah.

And I struggled a little bit with that.

And when I got to the end, then I had to go back in.

The first couple people that I drew, I had to go back and fix them up.

And my daughter was like, she looks different.

I was like, she's wearing the same clothes and she goes, but her hair is different.

And I had to go in and clean that up.

I love it.

But you didn't know until you finished it what it was going to all for you.

That's absolutely amazing.

I noticed you had in there tell us about Readsy because it says for typesetting.

So I need to understand what that service is.

I use Canva to load the actual book.

Okay.

And so you go through Canva and load it that way.

But there has to be another step in there.

And so that Evie Jones, that was one of her suggestions was to use the read.

It's just a website.

Okay.

And so you load your book into there and that prepares it to be an ebook.

Now, is that a paid service?

No, that was free.

That was free too.

Wow.

But you had to watch the videos.

To figure how to do it, how to do it.

Well, you like.

You got a really a great education.

Yes.

Good for you.

A degree off of YouTube.

Yeah.

There's a lot of degrees being earned off of YouTube, that's for sure.

You put it all together, you got your book formatted.

Now you're ready to put it onto Amazon.

And did you Also put down to ingramsparks.

I didn't.

A lot of your guests don't recommend what I did.

I didn't get my own number.

My ISBN number.

Oh, you didn't get an ISBN.

I. I was researching and I said, you know what?

I want to get the book out there.

That was one of those.

Not having the book sitting here, wanting the book done.

And I said, you know what?

I'm just gonna do Amazon.

I feel comfortable with it, and I. I'm just going to stick with that method and I'm content with just having them on Amazon.

Okay.

The only reason I ask is it's.

So can you modify.

In the future, can you move away from Amazon's product code number and purchase a.

Because I know in the United States you have to purchase your ISBNs.

Yes.

And then once you have your own ISBN, then you can get worldwide distribution.

By using Sparks, you get to reach the other online retailers.

Yes.

And I thought about that, but I don't know, maybe that's a.

Thinking small about how big of an impact that it could potentially have.

And I've trusted teachers, pay teachers to just.

That's the only place that my products are for sale.

And so I said, let me just get this done and let me just have this finished product.

So I did go that route.

But your book is available through Amazon.

The beautiful thing about it is you have the soft cover and the ebook.

I was wondering, because you have your second book out now is.

I am working on my next book because I realized that I really love this process.

It's brought quite joy.

And I have another story that's in the works, and I'm getting ready to start illustrating that one.

But I'm questioning how much to keep the.

How much to reuse some of the characters in the same setting, because I want the same teacher and I want the same.

I want it to flow.

I actually have a couple different books in my head that I have worked out.

So there's gonna be four for this part.

Is it gonna be a book series with Joy and Sunny?

Yeah, they'll be all with Joy and Sunny.

And it'll be a school book for.

I want to see it for teachers to use.

It's parents would enjoy the book or grandparents.

I have some grandparents buy the book, and I'm looking at my target audience being preschool teachers.

Okay.

Helping them cope with some things that.

In the book, her balloon pops and she has to figure it out.

And my son actually was helping me with editing it, and I had the mom rush in and my son was like, no, not the mom.

The mom doesn't need to rescue it.

You've already introduced the brother as a character.

The brother needs to come in.

And it really did change the way the book went.

It's nice that you made it a family affair.

Yeah.

My daughter is also a preschool teacher and they've been very helpful with my mom.

On my website, I call her my chief editor because I'll send her the blog posts and she'll read them and help me clean them up and everything.

So I do really have a good team of people in my life.

I feel so blessed with the support that I have from friends.

My friend, my one friend last weekend threw me a book launching party and made signs and earrings for everybody.

And a lot of parents of teachers that I have taught.

I actually had a little girl that I taught when she was.

She's that she got married last year and I taught her when she was 2 and when she was 4, I moved up in age and I got to teach her again.

And I've kept in contact with them all and they live in Wisconsin.

And the mom reached out and said that she was taking the book to.

She's a nurse and she was taking it to the children's hospital to be on their shelves.

And so I really do have a good support system around me of family and friends that have just been so amazing and parents of kids that I've taught.

So let's come back to.

You've got this second book in mind.

So I think you're going to ask because we just launched our second book around the same time you, you launched your book.

And are you going to again just do the Amazon product code number or are you thinking now that maybe you should get its own ISBN?

I think that I'm just gonna keep doing the Amazon route.

And then my thought is on teachers, pay teachers.

Sometimes when I have four or five products or bulletin boards and I have one for every month, then I bundle them together and then they're a little bit cheaper of a price to bundle them together.

So then my thought was after I finish, there's actually four, then I could put all four together and do my hardback that way and have a hardback book that's all four stories.

Oh, that's a great idea.

I think most of our audience knows that I live in Canada and the One thing about ISBNs in Canada is they're actually free.

Yes.

So I guess my other option would be to move to Canada.

Well, come on up.

We love to have You.

But the beautiful thing about it is that knowing your ingenuity, I was thinking, man, it'd be such an easy thing for you to do, actually, once you do it once, create your own ISBN, it's such an easy thing to do, to carry on.

Yeah.

Process.

But again, and I know that you.

Can buy 10 for.

Yeah, I have no idea.

That's the only thing.

I don't know what the pricing is to purchase an ISBN.

I think one is like 125 and then three or a little bit more, but then you can get 10 for just a little bit more than that and you get 100 for $500 or.

And I've said to people, watch how many you purchase.

It's easy to get caught up in the bundling game.

And then, oops, I got way more than I need.

Yeah.

So terrific.

If the model is working for you and you feel good about that, then.

And the beautiful thing, the neat thing about Amazon is you can get worldwide distribution because you can set your book up in every single market that Amazon is in.

And you might as well say they're in the whole world.

The beautiful thing about that, we've had some of our children's book authors sell books in Spain, in India, in the United Kingdom.

They just never know where you might get a sale.

And the nice thing about Amazon is that's all free.

That's a free service.

Once you set your book up, it's free to go into all those marketplaces.

I'm curious, so you're using their print on demand service.

Are you buying very many in bulk or what's your strategy?

I've been a little bit nervous about how I bought 10 to start with and then I needed to buy instead of buy 15 more.

I guess I could take buy a whole bunch, but I also have a hard time with the ones that I buy, not just giving them to people instead of selling them, but.

Yeah, that's what my wife says to me every time I give one away for free.

She gives me the evil eye.

Yes, it's also her money.

It's not just my money.

Exactly.

And it's how much do you sell them for?

And I only get so much off of if I sell a book, but people are spending.

I have my book listed for 1299 and so that's how much they're spending.

But that's not how much you get when you sell a book.

Correct.

You bet.

So good for you.

Yeah, it's really a difficult thing.

Have you reached out to any retailers?

That's on the list of things to do with it being of it's a kind of a fall book because of the Macy's Day balloon.

You can host the balloon parade in your class anytime you want.

But it is a little bit more of a fall book.

I've been going to my daughter's school to read at her school.

I do have a couple places lined up to do a story time or I have some of those coming through that I'm working on lining up.

And then also one of my parents of a child, I taught both of her children.

She bought the book and posted a picture on Facebook and I had somebody reach out that's a children's book author in the area and he was trying to start a small group of local children's authors up.

And so we have our first meeting tomorrow night and that I know that's recommended and that kind of just fell in my lap.

Good for you.

One thing I will say is because a lot of people are probably thinking, you know what Shannon, if you don't have an ISBN, I don't know how a retail store will take your book in.

But I want to tell you a story is that of course, I mean we've got our ISBN on and why wouldn't I if it's free?

Yes.

One thing I found out is that we're in four different retailers with our books and they all make their own product codes and so they actually put their product code over the ISBN.

So the ISBN for most retailers isn't that important.

Unless you get into Walmart or Barnes and Noble or something like that, then they expect you to have an ISBN.

But if you're going into a local bookstore, nine times out of 10 I'll put any money on it.

They do their own product code number and they put their own price tag on the over top of your ISBN.

There are a couple places around here that I have been thinking about stopping by and seeing and I know that I could buy a pack of them and then supply them at the author, the author price that we get the books for and supply them and when they run out I can order more.

That's in my long term plans.

Okay.

Until you mentioned the Macy's parade which I've heard of.

Yes.

I never for one moment equated for now living in Canada, I just thought it was universal.

More of a.

From September to whatever your school year is, more of that activity.

I never thought of the specifically a fall idea.

I'm just saying to you, I think that the concept of having a Balloon parade.

You could do it whenever.

And you could actually take it one step further if you're thinking about, oh, it's seasons, then you could have a balloon parade for Thanksgiving, and you could have a balloon parade for Christmas, and you can have a balloon parade for Valentine's.

You see where I'm going with this?

Yes.

And that's the lines that I'm on.

I don't want to give too much away of the next book, but the teacher across the hall, when I brought the balloon parade to the school that I'm at, she brought a different type of event to the school that's more of a spring.

It goes along with St. Patty's Day.

Okay.

And the kids decorate potatoes.

And my dad was born on St.

Patty's Day, and even though we're not Irish, he made sure that people always thought he was Irish.

Yes.

And so she brought a potato pageant to the school.

And so the next book will be about a potato pageant.

Oh, very neat.

Very neat.

Let's talk a little bit more about your website, because I noticed you have a beautiful website.

And when I was looking at it, I'm going to guess that the birth of your website was around the middle of September of 2020.

Yeah, I think it was about then.

Ask me why I said that.

Is that when I wrote my first.

September 17, 2020, you were pretty rapid fire with your blog post for a while.

So.

Yeah.

You've now settled.

Have you settled into a pattern?

No.

Okay.

So it's like a box of chocolates.

We just never know when we're going to get it.

Yes.

Yeah.

Still being in the classroom and that now it's more.

When I have a new product line, then I say, oh, I should write a blog post about this product line.

And then I made a whole separate page for the book section.

It's a whole different top part.

Okay.

I actually have a blog on my website also, and I was pretty religious about it.

I started trying to figure out this whole social media thing and where best to put more of a blog post.

My background is a little different than yours, but the teaching background.

And I was thinking, how do I reach educators, teachers and principals?

And the nice thing about it, if you go on LinkedIn, that's where you're finding these groups that possibly might support you and your books versus and I don't want to take away anything from the groups that I belong to that are children's book authors, but it's children's book authors speaking to children's book authors.

You know what you can only support each other so much, and you've got to find some readers, like a bigger audience so you can sell your books.

And that's why I chose to post on LinkedIn.

So I've moved away from my blogs, but I'm thinking if I'm already writing the blog for LinkedIn, I should be able to just pretty well put it back into my own blog.

If only we could do all the things all the time and.

Exactly.

I think you can.

I don't think I can, but I noticed you have that skill set.

I have a hard time marketing my products a lot of on Instagram.

The other teachers that I teach with, there's four of us where actually we hang out a lot.

And we're called the taste buds because we like to eat together.

We will go out to eat with a taste bud.

And they're actually.

The little characters in the book are named after them.

They're.

The three other girls are my friends that are.

We do sometimes do Instagram videos where we.

We were ghosts last year and we walked all around the school with our sheets on our head and so we'll do silly stuff.

But then when it comes to promoting things, I'm not as good.

And it's interesting you should say that because on episode 48, I had a guest on Lori Orlinsky, and she talked about earned media.

And with your personality, Shannon, you know what?

I don't know if there's a local newspaper or local radio station or TV station with your personality.

They're always looking for human interest stories.

You should be reaching out.

I will put that in my business plan.

When we launched our first book, I actually.

The Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear.

I actually got a hold of the local newspaper and they loved it.

I was blown away.

And because of that, we got three quarters of a page with my picture and the book and caboose.

Oh, wow.

I thought, yeah.

And at that time, I didn't realize it was called earned media.

But it's all about just asking if you get a chance.

You should do that because you got a cute book.

Thank you.

They're always looking for human interest stories.

So you've got a great human interest story.

Motivation.

I want to talk to you a little bit about motivation.

Was there a specific person or event that motivated you?

After four years, you got your website going.

All of a sudden, boom.

Now you've got this children's book tab on your website.

Who motivated you or what event motivated you?

I think that the mom last year, I Actually gave them a signed copy because I have the daughter in my class this year when his balloon popped.

It was trying to help kids deal with catastrophes that could come up that just really can set a child's world.

And so the children in my class really do motivate me to do those kind of things.

I did start this product just last year, but I actually want to show you when my children, they are 28 and 29 years old and when they were little kids, I actually went.

This was way before you could order stuff off of Amazon or things were so at your fingertips.

I went to the art store and I bought a blank book and it's blank pages.

And I wrote my children a book.

I drew all the pictures and everything.

So 30 years ago, 25 years ago, I thought of doing this and I just never.

Back then, you couldn't just list it on Amazon and have it sell.

You did have to go the traditional way of publishing.

It's always been in my head, but I don't feel like a children's book writer because I see the whole little creative almost like a little movie playing out that I need to get out there.

Yes.

And so writing it is just a little part of it for me, of get it.

I had to write the story to get the book out.

My children motivate me.

My family, they motivate me.

I dedicated this book to my two kids because they.

They mean a lot to me and my husband and everything.

One of the things that ever happened was my mom and dad are no longer with us.

But when my first granddaughter was born, so that would be their first great grandchild, they decided to purchase a book that you could actually record yourself reading the book.

Okay.

And my granddaughter still has that book.

And really, when I look at it, that's one of the few things left that we have my mom and dad's voice recorded and still in a meaningful manner.

I'm getting ready to have a big birthday next year in the winter.

I'm going to hit the big five zero.

And you do, when you get into that, it's.

What am I leaving behind as my legacy?

I.

When my father passed away, it was like a book disappeared.

All of his stories.

And you can't go back and get that information again.

To me, this is a way that I can leave a part of my heart and soul out there for future grandchildren.

Well, it's nice that your.

Your son and daughter have been involved.

And you know what?

For me, as you've heard, it's my five grandchildren and We've done half of our books in audio format.

And I talk about our bookmark and the QR and using Canva and downloading the audiobooks.

It's just so much fun.

And the one thing I always say to everybody that they grow so fast, too.

So you.

You gotta get in there and enjoy it because, boy, it.

The years just keep going on by and they get older.

And I love that you have them read in the stories.

I think that's so special.

And from that, I asked my mom, that's another step of doing the audiobook.

I said, mom, will you read the book?

Same thing.

I want to have her little piece of it.

And she's been so helpful in this whole process.

And so when I figure out how to do the audiobook, she has agreed to be my reader for that.

Terrific.

You got the equipment right there with your microphone, right?

Yes.

I just have to figure out all the other stuff and line up our timing to.

Yeah.

Because I have to tell you another story is that it's pretty cool.

Dolby, if you go into a movie theater, is called D O L B Y Dolby.

They actually have an app and you.

It's free.

It is phenomenal.

You can actually record right on the app.

It's.

Go be on.

You could just record that with your mother and.

Okay, it's.

I'm telling you, the stereo sound quality is phenomenal.

If you really wanted to get a little more professional, you could download Audacity, which is, again, a free.

And it's phenomenal to do all your audio editing.

Canva.

Beautiful thing about Canva is you can create your own QR code, download your audio file, and boom, you're in business.

Yes, for sure.

That's the next.

That's the next step, too.

Okay.

Sorry I'm giving you all these projects.

As a teacher, you'll be saying you gave him too much homework.

Rick, my daughter keeps asking me, did you draw today?

Did you draw?

I said, no, I have to get through this.

I have this.

And then I have fall breaks starting this weekend.

So I said, fall breaks.

I will work on the next books.

Let's talk a bit about character development, because you talked about Joy and Sunny.

Talk to us first about Joy and then.

Do you have a cat named Sunny?

No, I do not.

My daughter does have a cat and her cat's name.

She has two cats and one of them is named Sunny.

I am actually not a cat person, but so my friends.

I have a lot of friends that are cat people, and they're very surprised That I have this Sunny.

This.

That's a cat.

That's the main character in my stories.

I was interviewing someone from the UK the other day.

Her name is Sue Murley.

We haven't released her episode yet.

And she wrote a children's book called Shirley Murley and Clever Trevor.

And Clever Trevor is a border collie, black and white.

She doesn't have a dog.

Oh.

She's living her pet through her books.

So that's what you're doing.

Yes.

Tell us a little bit about how did you come up with Sunny the cat rather than Clever Trevor the dog or something like that.

I think just stayed on.

Brandon.

I needed an animal.

I needed something.

My friend was not too happy with me that the cat was the one that caused the mischief in the story and pop the balloon.

But it did teach Joy a good lesson about perseverance and resilience.

And so why a cat?

Yeah, I don't know.

I'm not sure why I went with a cat.

It was a good way to pop the balloon.

You explained the whole balloon experience through school.

Did you have any kind of experience like that when you were a child?

No, not.

I can't think of Benny.

The only reason I ask, we had a dog named Bandit.

He very playful dog.

And we have so many birthdays in our family that come over.

We blow up all these balloons and Bandit loved chasing them around and popping them.

That was his favorite thing.

When I read your story, I thought, oh, my goodness, it brought back memories.

So I'm sure as people are listening to this, they probably have memories of their cat or their dog running around trying to pop balloons at a birthday party.

Yes.

And I did have a parent say that I hadn't thought about that perspective of the book is that she bought a copy and then her child had been in my class and she said that I preserved a little moment of a class memory in the book that she was able to hold on to.

And it brought them back to the balloon parade that we had at the school.

And I never thought of it that way of preserving a moment for the kids that come through my class as well.

Point.

So let's pick up on that.

So let's discuss this whole theme.

I know you built it around the idea of the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, but take us a little deeper and talk to us about this whole development of that balloon parade.

It's something fun that we can do in the class, that it involves the families and brings the families together in a way, especially after the pandemic we were Just looking for different things.

There's a website that you can adopt a cow, dairy cow and you can follow this baby cow up to being grown put on by the milk this association for milker and so you can follow the story of.

And so I've adopted that.

I love to bring joy into the classroom and do fun things with the kids.

And my assistant, she is great at.

She has a six foot blow up dinosaur costume and she'll come into school in the dinosaur costume and Willie both will dress up, whatever.

We're always dressing up for different events and everything.

And I just wanted a book that would help children lead up to the balloon parade of a way to introduce what's going to happen.

And on the website there is a week long lesson plan for hosting your own balloon parade and tips and things and some map skills that they could make their own little map or design a balloon and figure out what it's going to look like.

It was important that I had the children solve the issue.

I think it's big now where parents and teachers are very quick to jump in and help rescue children and they need to learn that resilience and figure things out and.

Absolutely.

And I want to pick up on that because I just thought about it for a moment and I thought, oh, did the name Sunny come first or did the title of your book come first?

I actually had a hard time with the title because of my training with teachers, pay teachers and wanting it to be SEO, which is search engine optimization.

I wanted it to be searchable, but I didn't want it to be boring.

And so I really kept going back and forth with the title and finding it was going to be Joy in the Balloon Parade and Joy in the Thanksgiving Balloon Parade.

Then when I would try to find out fun ones, I was struggling with finding a fun, cute title that I was like, you don't even know what happened in the book.

And when I found the word catastrophe, then I thought, oh, that's perfect because it has the cat in it.

And that's what I loved about it because I was thinking, oh yeah, Sonny the cat.

Okay.

I love how you took the word catastrophe and made cat catastrophe.

Yeah.

And my mom said, oh, is that kind of a big word for kids?

And I said, no, they know the names of the dinosaurs.

They can handle the word catastrophe.

But staying.

No, it's fantastic.

And so that, that leads us to your really your central teaching.

Right.

Your central teaching is actually through the title of your book.

Yeah.

So talk to us a bit more so that people understand What I'm talking about.

I'm big on kids having independence.

And we have.

When it starts.

Okay.

I am in Charleston, South Carolina.

So our winters are a lot different than your winters.

Absolutely.

Our leaves start falling in November, December, December.

We hope that we could go out and play in the leaves before Christmas.

And so we start having to wear jackets to the playground end of October.

And so I have a jacket day where we all figure out how to put our coats on.

And I talk about different methods of how to put a coat on because I want children to be successful, and I want them when they have confidence then.

And that's the biggest thing that I try to teach in my classroom, is how to deal with problems and all the social learning how to play with other kids and learning how to talk things out.

And that's so important to me.

And I see such growth in preparing the kids to go to kindergarten with learning independence and learning social skills and learning how to solve their problems.

That's really what I like to focus on.

And this book was a good opportunity to.

That's terrific.

I just love it.

Great job.

Thank you.

Your writing process.

Now that we've revealed that you are working on a second book, could you give us share some insights into your development and writing process for your next children's book or this current children's book?

Tell us about it.

Yeah.

So this one, it flowed pretty easily because I had the story down.

And then once I started developing how I was going to have the story play out, then there were just small tweaks where I would start changing little parts of it.

Some of it came also with the illustration.

The one character makes an ice cream balloon.

Originally it was going to be a pumpkin, but I didn't like the way the pumpkin balloon, like taking the image of a balloon and turning it into a pumpkin.

It just.

It wasn't exciting.

Like, I didn't love it.

And so then I was on Pinterest looking up ideas of balloons for real balloon parades that they had done at school.

And I saw Ice cream Cone, and I was like, oh, that'll be cuter.

And so I had to change the story a little bit to go along with the illustration.

And I come up with the story and I get it out.

And then as I start putting in the pages and figuring out the drawings, then sometimes I have to adapt the story a little bit to go along with.

And what would you say, knowing that you're the illustrator but also the author, are you more visual or talk to us about that?

Oh, I'm Much more visual.

The words just needed to.

I needed to figure those out.

But that, to me was a smaller part of.

Okay.

Oh, no, that's fantastic.

Fantastic.

I'm not somebody that needs to write or I have a hard time keeping a journal for very long.

My calendar doesn't have much.

I don't write things down.

I'm very visual.

So.

Do you doodle a lot?

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

Success measurement.

We previously talked about your website and how you built that out four years ago.

You keep building it now.

You've added your book tab and your books, and that'll help bring traffic to your website.

I'm curious, though, when you started thinking about your book and your book success, what did it mean to you?

What does success look to you?

I think part of the success was getting it done and listed just to get to that point.

There's a lot of people that you interview or other people.

I've heard them talk and they've had an idea for 10 years.

And having the finished product, to me was the first success.

Having it listed, seeing it in the Amazon search, that was a huge success for me because that doesn't happen a lot.

That there are a lot of people out there that have stories that they're waiting to tell and just don't have it pieced together.

And so crossing off all those boxes and having it listed was the first success.

And I did need to read it to the kids in my class because I needed to see children react to it.

And the other thing is with teachers, pay teachers, when I sell a product or if I list something that most of the stuff I use in my own classroom, and when it only lists five sales, then I think that number seems small.

But then I think, okay, if that's five teachers that bought that book, then that means they might have 20 kids in their class.

And so then it's 100 children that got to six.

See that they're walking around with that headband on their head that I created.

That just gets me a little emotional thinking about that, where 25 years ago when I started teaching, my husband says, oh, you've taught so many kids in our small community.

You've really made an impact in our area.

Yes.

And then when I started listing on teachers, pay teachers, it's, wow, there's people in.

Somebody just bought this.

In Texas, Somebody just bought this.

There's.

I had somebody that bought some chapel lessons, and they were doing a Bible study at their church, and they had 70 kids that were walking around with the headbands.

I created on my head.

And that just.

That's a little emotional thinking that something you created is out there.

And so even if the numbers are small of who bought the book, if a teacher bought that book and she reads it to her class and she reads it every year, then it's made a huge impact.

It's not just one sale.

Absolutely.

There's so many children that are getting to hear that.

The beautiful thing about children, they're a renewable resource.

It's constant.

We get new children all the time, and they just keep coming into the system.

The beautiful thing about it is that most children's books are timeless.

And that's what I keep saying to my guests that.

Come on.

I remind them that, you know what?

Just because you did this podcast interview, don't forget to link it to things.

Because it's timeless.

Because your book is timeless.

People are hearing this episode, a lot of them.

When we get new listeners, they're listening to the episode for the very first time.

It doesn't matter that it was published six months ago or a year ago, because they're hearing it for the first time.

They're being introduced to your book for the very first time.

And it's the same with children coming into the school system every year.

It's a brand new audience.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's fun.

It's so much fun.

Yes.

Your role as a children's book author, it's expanding.

Talk to us about that in the grand scheme of things, as you see it developing through your life.

I think it's going to take me a little bit of time.

It took about eight months or nine months, so it feels I've been birthed.

It's like the same amount of time as it took to carry your children in.

Okay.

But here's my book, baby.

Yes.

And it's going to take me a couple years.

I have these four books ideas.

So I'm hoping by next year at this time.

I don't want to put.

Yeah.

Putting a date out there.

Yeah.

Because I gave you a lot of homework.

Yes.

And it's like, how much do I keep promoting the book that I already did versus diving in and balancing both of that?

And it was funny because when we were headed to my book launch, my daughter and I were talking and we were preparing stuff.

I said, I'm a numbers person and I like even numbers and not odd numbers.

And so I had these four ideas of these books that I want all to be together.

And then a bundle book.

So that's five books.

And then based on this book that I wrote 30 years ago to my children.

I had three ideas back then of books that I wanted to put out.

And my husband said, why didn't you start with that one?

And I said, no, I need to get the balloon one out because I think that it'll be.

Teachers need it now and it's not out there yet.

So I said to my daughter, I said, well, if I have these other three books that I did years ago that I need to now put out, once I get this, I said, then if I make those a big one, then that's nine.

I have to have 10.

Then I'm like, okay, then at 10 I have to stop.

So maybe that should be a 10 year goal.

But my grandchildren and myself have written 38 different books and in the series.

But you know what?

Unless I win super lotto and win 100 million bucks, we're probably never going to get all 38 to market in print.

Unless one of your grandchildren learn how to draw and do all the illustrations for you.

Yeah, I have two that are very talented from that aspect.

So far, I haven't been able to convince them to be the illustrator.

Advice for aspiring authors.

Now that you're a newly minted children's book author, what advice would you give to someone starting out who's an aspiring book author?

And how to get started?

When I drew the.

When I took little sheets of paper and I drew out what my story looked like, then I was able to take action.

When I knew the next step that I needed to do is when then I was able to take action.

When I watched the Evie Jones video about how to set up the procreate and what size to put it in.

And I was able to just do that and get it set up.

Then I just started.

Once I got those characters developed, then once you just start doing it, then you start doing it better.

Right now I'm sitting with this story and I haven't started drawing it.

Once I start drawing it, then the story will just.

It'll just grow.

Once I just tip.

Start taking those steps to get closer to your end goal.

Because if you just overthink it, then you won't ever do it.

Take no action.

Yeah.

And those little action steps is where you learn.

It's where mistakes might happen.

Like I said, the first characters I drew, they didn't match by the time I got to the end and I had to go back and tweak them and clean them up.

And there's a lot of things in that Procreate app.

That I don't know how to do yet.

And as I work in it and play around with it, then I figure it out and then it becomes an easier process.

Just get started.

Thank you for sharing that encouragement for readers.

Why should children's book readers purchase your book?

I'm gonna gear towards teachers because I think that it is a good book for preschool teachers.

Like I've said, I've been in the class for a long time and I wanted something especially for those four and five year old kids that's the age that I've taught forever.

And I just think it's a good book to help deal with little problems and come up with solutions.

It's a good starting point of talking through what happens when something doesn't go your way.

What happens when there's a big catastrophe in your life?

How are you going to deal with it?

And a catastrophe to a child could be that their parents set them in the wrong shoes that they didn't want to wear and the things that we think are innocent and simple and not so important to a kid.

It can be a really big deal.

And so I think this book just helps them think through some of those things that they have happen in their life and how they can be lessons and how they can grow out of those things.

That's terrific.

I normally ask this as a single question.

I'm going to ask you in a two parter and you'll understand in a moment.

Okay.

Final thoughts.

Is there anything that you'd like to share that you said, gee, I wish Rick would have asked me that question.

I should be more prepared for this because I know that you ask it and you ask that question.

And I don't.

I do have.

Because I felt when I reached out to you about coming on this podcast, I feel that you are very down to earth and easy to talk to.

But then you do have ideas of things that you have seen.

So I did have a small question for you.

Certainly is.

You know, sometimes you reference caboose sitting behind you or whatever.

And so I was wondering if you ever thought of loading these onto YouTube for people to watch the interviews.

Oh, great question.

And it's interesting because it's actually a page from your book is it's having the time because I had this huge list.

When I do the podcast, I separate the audio from the video and I edit the audio.

I still have the video, but then I would have to then edit the video and my wife says where the heck did you disappear to?

Because the.

The interview.

I love the Interview part.

It's so much fun.

Then you've got hours to edit it.

And so maybe someday, maybe if I hit the jackpot and I've got this whole library of video, I'll say, okay, time.

So absolutely.

I was just wondering about that.

No, that's a great question.

And when you get your 10 books done, I'll do it.

Okay.

Now, part two.

I've never asked anybody this question, but because I now consider you an expert on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors podcast, I'm always looking for ideas on how to improve the podcast shows.

Have you got a. I should have saved my.

I should have saved my question for part two.

Now, I love that you talk to people that are at different stages and different, have different abilities or are just regular people that have taken on this adventure.

They just said, hey, let's let me put this out there.

I started listening because when I decided to do this, I started looking for resources of where can I learn from?

And I love to listen to podcasts.

I have a 13 minute drive to work back and forth and I love to start up a podcast and listen to that while I'm driving both ways.

And I looked at podcasts and yours popped up.

And then when I was driving in the car then it was really nice just to hear different people's stories and look at different people's websites.

And it really helped me figure out and make me feel confident that, hey, I can figure this out.

I can do this.

Thank you.

It's beautiful.

I'm glad you said that.

About 13 minute drive.

You know what, I don't try and I book about an hour time and.

But I don't try and rush anybody.

That's not the point of this.

And some people might say, oh my goodness, it's an, it's 59 minutes or it's an hour and 13 minutes or whatever.

But the beautiful thing about podcasts is you listen and then you get to work and your day goes on and then you say, maybe I'll listen on the way back or maybe I'll listen in a couple of days.

It really doesn't matter.

It's bookmarked itself and then you just pick up where you left off.

And that's why I encourage people to know that, you know what, you don't have to digest the whole thing.

Thing in one sitting in end because I think the way I ask the questions, it's like little chapters.

So you're getting some advice on publication or website development or the writing process.

The list goes on.

And I know some people have short episodes that are only eight or nine minutes, but that's not a drive and I can't change it once it's over.

I can't load another one while I'm driving, so I need it to be over the 13 minutes if I want to.

Good point.

I appreciate that so much.

Shannon.

Thank you so much for being a guest on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors Podcast.

Your generosity of time, your insights.

And again, I always say this at the end, but you know what?

Here we are.

Shannon's given us insights on starting her website business first and then how it grew from there, and she was able to develop into a children's book business.

Just beautiful.

Your generosity of time and insights, I know, will help other aspiring book authors and readers.

We promise to provide the audience links to Shannon's social media and links to her beautiful website with the network of teachers paying teachers.

I think that's such a beautiful thing.

And if you enjoyed this episode, please hit the subscribe button to listen to our future episodes and feel free to share this episode with anyone inspired by or who enjoys hearing about Shannon and her children's book Joy and the Big Balloon Cat Castrophe.

Thanks Shannon.

Thank you so much for having me on today.

I.