Tanya Cuesta, Money Time.

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

It's a great pleasure to have you here today.

Oh, it's a pleasure to be here.

Thank you for having me.

Before we jump right in and talk about your book, I have to compliment you.

This blows my mind.

And I want to share this with the audience on how we met.

It all stems from.

There's a little purple box back there.

And so just so the audience understands he's listening to the audio, Tanya sent me a gift.

Tanya, I'll tell you what I call it, and then you can tell me what you call it.

On my doorstep arrived this box.

And I thought, oh, what's this?

And so I opened up this box.

I went.

I said to my wife, did you order something from Amazon?

And she said, no.

I said, oh, okay.

So I opened up the box.

It was addressed to me.

I went, wow.

And so, just for the audience, when I get to interview a children's book author, most of the time what happens is their public relations team reaches out to me and says, our.

I think our author will be a good fit for you.

Can they come on your show?

I'm so excited when someone reaches out and says that to me.

I say, absolutely, let's do it.

Tanya took a different route.

And so what I did is I got this gift, and so now I'm going to tell the audience what was in the gift.

And in the gift, which I'm going to call a public relations book kit.

Tanya, you might call it something different.

And we'll talk about that in a minute.

Inside, there was this incredible treasure trove of things.

First, there was the personalized and autographed book, Tanya's book, Money Time, which I just loved.

And I'm going to come back to what was what Tanya wrote to me in the book.

And also in there, she teased me, so she.

So I didn't even get a chance to read the book.

She teased me because I got a piggy bank and I got bookmarks, and I got a money clip and I got stickers, and I got a toy clock.

And I thought, what the heck is all of this?

It was fantastic.

Thank you.

I thought, what a way to.

To.

To tease potential podcasters and you want to be on their show.

And it was just incredible.

And Tanya actually gave me two methods also in which to contact her.

So she.

She gave me her email address, and she also gave me her Instagram handle.

Tanya, I immediately reached out through your email address and said I'd love to have you as a guest on our show.

And I was so motivated to read your book, which I did immediately.

And Tanya, one of the things that I do because you're giving up your time and we're discussing your book.

So look back here, I actually purchased another book craft copy and then I have the book I can share with my grandchildren.

Thank you.

My pleasure.

I just couldn't resist.

And I just have to tell you how fantastic receiving your little bundle of joy.

A little later in the podcast interview, I'll open up the floor to you and we, I'd love to talk about this, what I call your PR book, the Kit.

So let's jump in here and talk about Money times.

It's such a cute book.

Thank you.

The first thing I'd like to do is if you could do tell us two things.

First of all, what was your inspiration behind the book and how did it all get started?

Wow.

Thank you so much for that introduction and thank you for acknowledging the book kit that I sent to you.

It just means so much to me.

I was inspired by actually I'm also a speech language pathologist and I was inspired by my students to write the book Money Time because they consistently telling me I was working at the time I was working in a high school and they were telling me that balancing all of their academic and their social obligations was challenging.

And I was reading a book to my son who was a toddler, now he's 2.

At the time he was a few months old because I was reading him since birth.

So I actually was reading a book and I was thinking of my students and I was in the the flow because I was reading a story and I had this idea that came to me and I'm just as it was my first book, I'm just still getting started with it and I, I wrote notes in my phone just ideas and about how money and time have similarities, how you can save, you could spend it, you can waste time.

And then I said it's a tangible way for children to think about how to spend their time and what to do with it.

So that's how it came to be.

And that's just how I really, that's how I began.

That's how I got started.

I love it because you know what the I love how you use the, like you said, time and money and the 24 hour clock and the $24 and we'll get more into that.

So neat.

So I'd like to know a bit about each of us has a unique way of publishing our publishing approach.

So far, in the research I've been doing, talking to other children's book authors, you're either self published, traditionally published, or a hybrid, which is the combination of self published and traditional.

Can you tell us your story, share your approach and why you took that route?

Sure.

Everything you said when I was doing research, same thing.

I was finding out about traditional publishing and self publishing.

With traditional publishing, I heard that it was advised that you.

You're supposed to get a literary agent.

And I'm very open to doing that in the future with other book ideas I have, but I didn't really know where to begin with that.

So then when I found out about self publishing, it was just a personal goal for me to finish what I start in the year 2024.

I'm like, you just have to.

You have to finish some things.

You have to get it out there.

That's why I chose the self publishing, because I said, and I did it through Amazon.

Kdp, let me.

Just let me.

And I'm.

I just felt that this was the best route at this time, just to get the idea out there, the book out there.

But I'm, as I said, open to traditional publishing in the future or a hybrid model in the future, too.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

And very much similar to your story.

I've mentioned this once before in one of the podcast interviews I did.

I, like a lot of people during COVID wrote a book, and it wasn't a children's book.

I had a background in investment real estate.

And during that time frame, I thought, I gotta get this book out of me.

So I actually wrote two books during COVID So I was lucky because I got to test drive self publishing before I got around to actually publishing our children's book, which my youngest granddaughter and I had written before COVID We just didn't know how to bring it to life.

It's not easy.

It's.

And I didn't have any advice.

I didn't have anybody that's done it before me that I know.

So I'm like, what do I do?

I know.

Isn't that the truth?

And that leads me to my next question.

And I'll explain a little bit why I'm asking you this.

Maybe that'll give you a sense of what happened here.

So I want to talk to you about.

I noticed you don't have a website.

Yes.

And so I just want to talk to you a little bit about that and I'll tell you our story.

So when we Decided to become to publish our children's book.

My granddaughter and I, Kira, what we did is everybody advised us that you needed a home for your book in today's digital world.

They said, you gotta have a website.

You gotta have a website.

And we thought, oh.

But we were getting that advice later.

We were almost through bringing our book to life and publishing it before we got that advice.

So we thought, oh, we're gonna launch our book and then we'll think about a website.

That's exactly what we did.

Are you having the same thoughts right now?

Yes.

I didn't think about, as I said before, it was just, I want to get this book out there and then I.

And everything else will follow just like, how do I just get the idea the book to be for people to know about it?

And then now I'm thinking about a website because I know that would be really helpful and it would be, it would be great.

And I said, even when I have other books, it'll be nice to have them all on the, on the website there for people to purchase directly from the website.

But this was just, as I said before, just, I wanted the book out there and I wanted to people to know about it.

And I just was, I didn't have really any advice until after the book was out there.

That's funny how advice comes forward.

It actually comes rushing in like a waterfall.

Right.

All of a sudden you're going, where were you before I got my book published?

Yes.

I'm so appreciative of friends and just even some people that are friends of mine or I've known them in the past where we're like, wow, I, I read your book and I have some ideas and I'm like, okay, great.

Thank you.

Fantastic.

Tanya, I'm just going to tell you our story.

It's not advice one way or the other, but I will tell you what I've heard so far because I, I ask if you had a website, I'd ask you, Tanya, why did you make the website in your name?

Or I'll ask you, Tanya, why did you make the website in the name of your main character or your book series?

So that's how it would go.

So in your case, the beautiful thing about it, you have two options.

You have, if you've got books that are going to be.

Not have the same main character, you may say, I've got a whole bunch of book ideas.

So I think I'll do it.

I.

I'll put it in my name, your author's name, or you might Say I have a book series.

I'm going to create the website based around the book series.

We actually wrote 38 children's books in our book series.

Unfortunately that being a self publisher this, it's not inexpensive to do this.

Exactly.

Just so you know, that's what we ended ended up doing is we still had this large vision of eventually having a book series.

A book.

So we created a website and it's called Caboose, the Rocky Mountain Bear.

Com.

That's what we did.

I just throw that out to you because if you're formulating thoughts in your head, the other thing I'll just say just again for what happened to us is the nice thing about actually doing the book in advance of creating the website is again you have to pay a designer, if you're not a website designer for all the graphics that are going to populate your pages.

So guess what we did.

We used some of our book, our original book as the graphics for our website.

So it just kept the cost down a bit of putting a website together.

Again, just offering that out to you.

Thank you and thank you for that advice because knowing what to title the website I it probably, I, I just will say this is, it will probably be in my name in the future because other book ideas I have are separate from money time and different from money time.

And it's not so much I don't see money time being so much of a series.

It's more that I just have some additional ideas.

So good with you.

You're more than welcome.

And if you go to and listen to more of our podcast shows, we just did an interview with Terri Lindga and she's out of buffalo around Buffalo, New York.

Oh, and hers is Terry lyngabooks.com and, and I just interviewed an author from Staten island and her name is Denise Caesar and she's written several different books that aren't in a series.

She's named her website denise caesar.com.

i just actually had an author who's from Pennsylvania, she's a pilot and used her name, it's Aaron Murphy Books Comp.

So just so you know to give you that.

And then I interviewed a gal from, from California and she's named her site after her main character.

Oh, very nice.

Yeah.

So that just gives you some ideas and hopefully the audience is thinking okay, what, what's going on here?

Again, I always like to find out about websites or site development or thoughts around website by sharing our con.

Hopefully aspiring authors say ah, they've given me some thoughts to Think about.

Absolutely.

I, I have to say too, if anyone has an idea to that they'd like to get out there.

I was as I said, brand new.

I still am.

I just happened to do some research and I just happened to get it out there and that I just, I, I give anybody who has an idea, who wants to put it forth into the world, I just say go for it.

Because that's what I, that's what I did.

I don't do that all the time.

So Kapha, tell us about that motivation.

So did a specific person or event motivate you to write your children's book?

I do think that I guess I would say I, I subconsciously would say.

Cause I can't say I had these different ideas for a while.

I have another idea that came before money time that is still not out there yet.

But that was even before this.

I think my son was my inspiration because I felt when I was reading, consistently reading children's books with him, I said I want to do this, I could do this too.

And that I would say it's him because it was only until after he was born that I actually put this idea out to the world.

Okay.

And so the other idea is you said you, you've put that on the shelf for a bit as you formulated this.

So that motivation's different.

I'm.

What happened with that book was it changed.

It was one, it became something different.

I had an idea for it in the beginning.

I thought it was going in one direction and then it started to change.

So I, and now I have it written and I have to, I want to put it forth also into the world.

But it took me a little while to complete it with money time.

For some reason in one evening, it just was finished.

So that's why I just the actual words, I'm like, okay, I have it done.

But the other one needed a little bit more tweaking and time.

On one of our recent episodes, the author had a eureka moment.

She woke up in the middle of the night and had her phone like you were talking about with your phone beside her.

And she wrote the whole book.

It just came spilling out of her.

And then it was very early in the morning, she shook her husband awake to read him the book.

And he loved it.

Scared.

You know what?

It's pretty incredible how sometimes it just flows out of you and then sometimes you have to let it ferment like fine wine.

Very true.

And I have a very supportive family.

My mother, my father, my brother, my sister in law, my husband Everybody who I reached out to about the book before it was anything, they were like, this isn't.

You're an author.

This is a book.

It was great too.

It was motivation for me too.

Nice to have cheerleaders.

Yes.

That's what I'm very fortunate.

I have five grandchildren who are all cheerleaders.

Four of them are narrators because we've actually recorded most of our books in audio format.

I'm curious too about your book.

Some people develop a book, it is around a character, but I noticed you have the character, but the character doesn't have a name.

And so I'm curious about a couple of things.

How did you develop your main character?

I noticed he doesn't have a name.

Can you explain to us the significance of using this technique where you have a main character but no name?

Yes.

I wanted the book to be anyone who read it to be able to put themselves in the character's shoes.

So instead of giving the character a name, it's almost like any.

It's written in a way that anybody can apply it to their life.

So I also, in the book, this is just getting into a little bit more of the content of the book.

I gave ideas and suggestions on what to do with time, but it was almost like leaving it very open ended so that children can think about what they want to do with their time and how they want to spend it.

So that was.

I wanted it to be just a way for children to think.

And so that's why I wanted the character to almost be like you could place yourself right in that, right on that page and you're the character.

Thank you for sharing that.

Because that's a technique that aspiring authors can use.

And also for our readers, they might be motivated to say, wow, Tanya's written a book where I can actually be the main character.

So terrific.

Very unique technique.

Thank you.

You're more than welcome.

I also noticed in your book that you actually transitioned a bit in that you introduced it later in the book.

An adult.

Yes.

Again, just so for aspiring authors or for the readers, explain to us this transitioning.

Transition to an adult.

So with the concept of time management every.

I feel that we all, including myself, still, even though I wrote this, I don't have all the attention time management.

But I was thinking about how adults who are reading the book to their children could also use it for their lives or have it as an.

Just an idea in the back of their minds of what to know what to do with their time.

I thought it would.

It could just apply to anybody, really.

Almost anyone.

So that's where I transitioned into why I transitioned to.

Into an adult reading.

This could actually say, wow, okay, that's true.

Fantastic.

Because I do envision that someone sits down with their child and then all of a sudd.

I love the technique.

Thank you.

You transition where now it's not only the child seeing themselves.

Now all of a sudden, the mom, the dad, the grandparent sees themselves.

I love that.

Great technique.

So congratulations.

Thank you very much.

Oh, you're welcome.

So the theme.

Describe the theme a little bit about.

For the audience about your book.

Take a few minutes to do that.

Sure.

So money, time is actually taking the idea of that.

I thought of the phrase time as money.

So money represents time in the book.

You have.

If you have 24 hours a day, it's as if you have $24 to spend.

So it's all about you thinking, the reader thinking, or whoever is reading the book to a child thinking about how to spend that $24 and what to do with it.

What do you.

There are things we need to do that are just responsibilities for children.

School, for example, or maybe an extracurricular activity for adults.

We have work or whatever we may have to do, and we just have to think about how to fit in, what we want to do and what we need to do.

And also if we have passions or hobbies, some people may feel that's difficult to fit into their day.

But it's.

If you think of the concept of those hours in a day, you.

It's just a way of people opening their minds to how to put all of the tasks they want to do and need to do into their day.

So it's like you have to budget your time like you budget your money.

Absolutely.

Your technique is fantastic.

Because I love the idea of the 24 hours and the $24.

Because everybody can relate to that.

Yes.

And they can also relate to a dollar.

Yes.

You're not talking $1,000.

You're not talking $10,000.

You're talking $, a simple $ in a simple hour.

Yes.

Terrific.

Terrific.

Thank you.

So you talked a bit about your students and them being part of the inspiration in the book.

Yes.

And as a teacher, talk to us a little bit.

Because obviously, as a teacher, you always think, okay, what's the central lesson and what am I trying to teach my students?

Or so in other words, what's the central lesson in your book?

Or what are you trying to teach us as readers from your book?

I want.

I would say I want to teach the Children.

That it's as much as.

It's absolutely a challenge to balance our time that we really.

We all can do.

But if we just take a little bit of time.

There you go.

Time.

Actually schedule your day or to look at where I.

I always tell I.

When I use this book.

And I actually, I've done school visits too.

I was talking to some of the children about how it's in to.

To really write out how you're already spending your time and to see, see, really be honest.

If you spent four hours on social media, be honest and say yours.

Four hours on Instagram, just say, look at it and say, okay, do I need this amount of time on social media?

Could I have maybe went outside for a little bit?

We all, we all do it.

I.

Some of us get so wrapped up in work, even me, that's.

I get wrapped up in it and I realize I spent too much time working and I needed a little break.

And it's just.

That's the central lesson is that if we take a little time to look at how we're spending our time or take a little time to try to schedule how you want to spend your time, you really can fit in those things that you need to do and want to do in the day.

Absolutely.

That leads me to my next question because it's nice when we get to talk about not only your current book, Money Times, but we're also have delved a little into your next book.

I'm curious about your writing process.

One was inspirational, came to you like boom.

And the other one has taken some work.

So let's share some insights into your development as an author, your writing process for children's book, and besides your personal experiences, did you conduct any other research?

And if you did, why was it important?

Oh, that's a great question.

I would say in terms of the research, I really conducted more research after I had the idea for this book.

I'll say in terms of what to do and how to.

What to do with my book.

But I had the idea and I wrote it down and that was there.

My writing process is.

It's just different.

I notice with this other book idea and this other one that I also have in the back of my mind that's developing.

I have two other books in my head.

They're very different.

They're just.

I'm going different routes with them.

So it's.

One book may have more of a character with a name.

One may be similar to how I wrote Money Time, where I put somebody in the shoes of a character.

So it's just.

I'm testing the waters and I'm.

I'm trying out different.

Different methods, but I.

It's really just basically based on that story itself.

It comes to me in that way.

It's not.

I don't really have a.

I didn't research how to write so much into.

I didn't re.

It just kind of is there and I just put it down.

And the one that is.

That changed.

That transitioned.

It transitioned from having a character to something more like money time, where I'm making it be more based on your experience and how you can relate to your life.

That's where.

That's why I ended up switching it, because I felt that the character story couldn't apply to as many people as I wanted it to.

And it's the.

Because you've already shared a technique that a lot of people may have not have thought of.

And even talking about money time and why you didn't put a name to your characters, and then even this next book that you're developing starts out as a.

Having a main character name.

And then all of a sudden, maybe not.

And that develops out of how you developed a technique.

That doesn't mean, like you said, that you wouldn't have a book with a main character name, but at this point, that's not the way you're headed.

Exactly.

And I think having a main character be wonderful because you can.

And people absolutely could relate to them.

For the idea that I have, it felt that the story was just too similar to something just in my own experience.

And I wanted to expand it a bit to other.

For people to be able to relate more for this.

Yeah.

In the future, I might have a character.

So.

Okay.

I just trying to.

As a children's book author, I.

I'm the neat thing about it.

I'm sitting in the same shoes.

I'm wearing the same shoes as you.

And so a lot of this is.

I get to be the student here, and I just love it.

And so I want to talk to you about success measurement, because everybody has their own ideas about what success is.

First, I want to share with the audience what I've noticed about your success so far.

And they might be thinking, okay, what's he talking about?

One of the things that I did some research on is, like, you, Tanya, what I did is I looked at Amazon as one of the ways to distribute our book.

Now we also use Ingham Sparks and to get to other book retailers, especially online book retailers, and then we can do some of Our own independent publishing ourselves.

Like printing our own books through a independent printer with Amazon, which is a go to for everyone I've talked to.

Amazon's important and I noticed when I did my research on Amazon to get your book more recognized, they say you should have on Amazon, if you get to 25, four five star reviews, Amazon actually boosts your rating so that you get more notice.

Yes, that I did hear as well.

And the other thing is they say if you hit 50 reviews you even get more special treatment from Amazon.

And of course it's their algorithm and all that.

They have it all set up now.

I'm curious because I had a look and I thought, wow, Tanya, good for you.

You're at 34, five star reviews.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

I love giving you the compliment because I know how hard it is to get to 25.

Yes, we need a little bit of your secret writing sauce here.

So how did you get to 34, five star reviews?

Oh my goodness.

The beginning was I was so honored because the few of the first reviews were people that knew me, my friends, my family, just to support me and they of course when they're like what this is great and what the book and then I would peek in there.

If you could give me a review that would be wonderful.

I would really appreciate a review.

But again wasn't I didn't expected of whatever people felt comfortable.

But then when I started doing some school visits, actually I was also on another podcast.

People reviewed it without, without really knowing me and knowing me well.

So that was, I was really blown away by that because like the first 10 reviews being from family and friends of course so honored.

But then when you see reviews and you're like I don't even know, I don't know this person or wow, they actually gave me a review.

The person that was, that was on a podcast.

Like I was just honored and blown away.

Some of it was just people who knew me and then of it was people that didn't.

So that was really.

When you said like how do you measure success?

I just thought that I just really was blown away by that amount of reviews.

I didn't expect it to.

Well, to the audience, Tanya is 16 reviews away from 50.

Any way we can influence you to support Tanya, we'd love you to help her get to.

Thank you because that is just spectacular healer.

Thank you.

I'll put that in my, my mind 2025, I'm gonna put it out there hopefully to get to 50 because I didn't even know in what you said in terms of 50 being another milestone for reviews.

So that would be wonderful, of course, if people.

If people love the book and would like to review it.

But I was really, really honored and I couldn't believe people liked it.

I love it when, like you said, we have reviews also, and I have no idea who these people are, but we just love it and we really appreciate it.

And I just want the listening audience to realize how important this is, because as a children's book author, it's not an inexpensive venture.

Generally, you're funding the whole thing yourself.

And unless you're an illustrator, it can get quite expensive.

Yes.

And I don't want to take any work away from illustrators because I love our illustrator.

But again, they have to make a living and that costs money usually.

What I mentioned something being that you brought up an illustrator.

I have a fantastic illustrator who helped me with my book.

And the way that I got to her name is Helen Ale was because again, didn't know any illustrators.

Do not know how to illustrate myself.

So I said, I went on Instagram and I looked up children's book illustrators.

And I sent the same message to everybody that was a children's book illustrator that I could find so many messages saying, I have a book idea.

I put this idea out there to this person.

Not until I was comfortable with the person that I was speaking with.

I think about it, I'm like, I'm just putting this idea in someone's hands.

We'll see what they do with it.

And she just blew me away.

But it was just me reaching out to many people just to say, I have a book idea.

I'm brand new at this.

Would love if we could maybe work together.

Would love to see your work.

And they.

Some have sent me their portfolios and I loved the way she drew her characters.

So I just went with her and it was amazing.

And I'm just.

I was so grateful for what she did.

Her name is Helen Ale and I was just honored to work with her.

But it was me saying, I, I hope of doing the right thing.

I don't know.

Fantastic.

And you know what, Tanya, after we finish the podcast show, if you want to send me her link, if she felt it's important, we'll put that in the show notes so that someone else is looking for an illustrator.

And if she's looking for some board, we're happy to do that.

We had a similar situation where we had to go out and find our own illustrator.

And we were very fortunate because we already had developed Our character, we had developed it to the point where we even had a sample made up of our character.

So I needed to find a illustrator.

And the reason I tell the story is for aspiring authors.

There's a lot of illustrators out there.

If you take your idea and your concept or even if you have that, you want that plushie to come to life.

It's incredible what illustrators can do and help you on your journey and bring your words to life.

Definitely.

And I was.

I gave her.

I had the idea of piggy banks and clock and money just being a consistent theme.

But her, she really.

She helped me develop the character.

She helped me develop just the ideas, but it was just basically we never met in person.

We spoke on, like, over zoom one day, and I told her a little bit about my vision, and she just was like, okay, what do you think of this?

I'm like, oh, she totally gets what I'm looking for.

It just felt comfortable.

And I took that gut feeling and I went with her.

But I was amazed at how she put it together.

And even though your illustrator is special, so many.

I want everybody to know there's a lot of special illustrators out there.

People are very talented.

It's incredible.

You know what?

If they're children's book illustrators, they get it.

Like, you know what?

They get it, and it's good to have that.

So we've talked about your star reviews, and that's something that came after you brought your book to life.

Now I'd like to talk to you a bit about your success before it even.

You even sold your first copy.

Talk to me about how did you envision success, and how are you in the future envisioning success?

I would say that before I sold my first copy, it was when I received the book, and it was a couple.

And this is something you would be familiar with, too.

I had Amazon put it together, and then it had to be changed a few times.

There were, you know, some tweaks that need to be made, or I noticed that, like, just from.

Because I had to upload all the pages, maybe I missed the page.

Something happened where it's like, I noticed that I had to look through it a few times.

When it was finally completed, I received it in my hand.

I'm like, this is.

It's amazing to really see it come to life and be even.

Just even when it was still in the works.

Just amazing to see it be in a book form.

And especially because I.

I love children's books so much.

So just being able to, to hold it and look at it and put it on my son's shelf with his other books was just such a great feeling.

And so I also felt that success, of course you would love reviews and you would love sales and it's.

Of course we're looking to, to have that, but I really wanted to go do those, as I said, those book readings in schools.

I've done two book readings in school so far and I have two other ones coming up in March.

That to me was such a.

That's after the book was out there.

But that was such an honor for me because that's where I saw the book when I was originally thinking about it was like, oh, this should be in schools.

Maybe this could be a lesson.

So that was really cool to see and to feel.

So tell us about the, the very first book reading.

Because you had this vision in your mind, right?

Yes.

And then now you got to go to and do it.

So tell, tell us the vision in your mind and the reality of what happened.

It was just, it was such a surreal moment.

I was like, wow, I'm actually going to school.

And it was.

My nieces and nephews attend that school.

And I was just so happy.

My sister in law reached out to her principal and they were open to me coming in.

I was just really honored to be part of that.

And I thank them for that opportunity.

And so reading it to them, reading it to the children in the school, they were so receptive to it.

They were really excited about it and the principal was so.

It was just such a nice feeling.

Kids were asking me to sign their books and to autograph like their little.

We did a little craft together too.

And they were like, can you autograph my pa.

Like my paper?

So it was really sweet.

And I was like, these children were just absolutely wonderful and they were into the idea and excited about it.

And so that was just a great feeling.

And I remember when my nieces and nephews would walk into that I would like well up.

But I was getting emotional because I was like reading to them.

So that was.

I could get emotional now thinking about it, but it was a really great experience.

That was wonderful.

The second reading I did was at a school friend of mine also.

She's.

I'd love you to come and read to my.

At my daughter's school again.

I was honored.

I did that again.

Same same thing, same concept with the children.

They were really excited about it.

The groups were a little bit bigger in the second group than they were in the first group.

But still just a great.

So I was just adjusting to how I was presenting my information and my ideas to them.

But it was just wonderful, really.

Just both schools were really great.

It was great experience.

That's one of the best feelings when I'm reading to the children in the schools.

Good for you.

Thank you.

Also, tell me about.

Libraries are very important.

I don't know if you have a library card, but I have a library card.

Have you thought about reading at libraries and have you approached any yet?

Yes, it's.

It's so funny.

Um, my son does an.

An online library class.

He does one.

So they mentioned that if I wanted to share the book to them, I could.

The children are a little young for that, so I think my book's a little bit more of a.

That the level is a little different, but still, it's great to have exposure and experience.

And I.

In terms of libraries in my area, I have not yet approached them just like the.

In person, but I would really love to.

I did another book reading at.

A lot of it came from my son.

The things that I've taken him to play places he takes a Zoombini class.

I did a reading there.

So those places I've been to.

But libraries would be fantastic.

I just haven't.

I haven't gone to my local library to show them the book yet.

I want to delve a little bit more into your role of writing and the reason I know we're getting a sense of who you are as a children's book author.

I noticed on your Instagram account, and again, I hope you don't find that I'm being critical.

This is not.

I noticed on your Instagram account you don't mention yourself as a children's book author.

The only way is you have a link to Amazon, to your book.

And I thought being.

Being a children's book author, like, I'm pretty darn proud of that.

And I'm just curious on why you haven't got up on the top of the school or whatever and shouted out, a.

A children's book author.

Why isn't that on your Instagram profile?

That's a really great point.

I'm gonna add it to my Instagram profile.

I actually.

I think sometimes with this being.

That's the first book, and I'm getting used to the title of being a children's book author and getting used to saying it with.

I'm so proud of it.

I'm so excited about it.

Yeah, I would definitely add it to my Instagram profile.

It's a terrific book.

It really is.

I love it.

So you definitely got it on the soapbox or whatever.

And shout out to the top of the world that you're a children's book author.

It's just a thank you.

It's a fantastic book and that everybody should read, whether you're a child or you're an adult.

Thank you so much.

I'm.

And I really appreciate that because I'm gonna add it.

Okay.

Add it.

After we.

After our conversation, talk to us more about how much time.

How is writing fitting into your life and how much time are you devoting to writing now?

I'm devoting more time to it, I'll say, because I first.

That was just as I said before the idea came to me.

It happened to be put out there.

And I'm.

I'm also putting time into reaching out to schools and getting.

Getting those events that I can set up for.

For the book.

But actual writing, I started to just spend.

It's not so much time.

It's just like maybe 10 minutes a day.

I do write some ideas down, not.

Quite putting a buck into it.

You're putting about 20 cents.

Yeah, it's maybe about 20 cents.

I couldn't resist.

That's a good one.

I.

Yeah, I put a little bit of time with my.

I.

I also have.

I feel like my.

With my son being like a busy, active toddler, I have just sometimes when I have pockets of time, I put a little bit of time into writing because I think it's.

It makes me happy, too.

It brings me a lot of joy.

It's just my.

But even if it's not the actual book itself, it's ideas or something down on page.

On a page, you know, to get something out there.

Good for you.

This isn't quite the end of our interview, but I wanted.

Because I described at the beginning about all the efforts you went to put this public relations book kit together.

I wanted to save it closer to the end because I wanted people to get a sense of who.

Who you are as a children's book author.

And I'm just going to describe to the listening audience one more time.

I received this special package, this marketing package with a signed copy with a.

A clock, a piggy bank, a dollar clip shaped like a dollar sign as a money clip.

The bookmarks and the stickers, all very unique.

And the thing that I thought, wow, when you took the time to actually write the message in your book that you did to me, I just loved it.

And when you said, I hope you Find some wonderful ways to spend your money, time.

And you made it out to dear Papa Rick Harris and family like that just stuck.

Tell us all about this.

Tell us how you came up with the idea.

Tell us now.

It's a little bit of a selfish thing for me, but I'm, I.

You said that I wanted to thank you for your wonderful podcast.

So tell us about all this.

Well, I do.

I love your podcast.

I think it's so wonderful.

And I really, I reached out to you because I felt, I just feel such a warmth from you and such a.

You very, you're always very welcoming.

I feel it today, obviously, but also always very welcoming to your guests and I know how important your grandchildren are to you and your family.

So I wanted to send it out to you.

I, I thought about a few podcasts that I listened to.

I thought about a few people that I admire and I said to myself, I want to do something different.

I don't want to just send the book or I don't want to just reach out and apply to be part of a podcast.

I, I want someone to see it and I want that person to.

They like it, they'll reach out.

But I also, I'm a very.

I love themes.

I've.

All of my students and all of my family, they know I'm.

If I'm gonna do a party and it has a theme, I go all out with the theme.

So this was where I said I want to put everything that I can think of that can apply to the book.

Like piggy banks and me, the clocks.

Like, I just, I wanted something that set the book apart from other stories.

Even every.

I, as I admire all different children book authors and all stories, but I wanted to put a little of myself into it.

And as I said, when I, when somebody has a birthday or a holiday, I'm like, what I.

How I wrap things, I always have some kind of theme to it.

So this is why when I opened the box up and it even was purple inside, I went.

And that's one of the.

Like my, all three of my granddaughters, their favorite color purple, purple and pink.

Even the pajamas that we bought yesterday for we, we actually celebrated Christmas yesterday, just the way family situation worked out.

But even the pajamas were pink and purple.

Those are my favorite colors too, pink and purple.

So purple.

Purple is my first favorite color.

So that's where I got the idea of the.

Even the book itself, the COVID there's a lot of purple in it.

That was something I did ask my illustrator.

I wanted to have that.

Those colors in there.

Wow.

Fantastic.

Oh, thank you.

It means so much that you enjoyed the book.

The book package too, because I was really excited about putting that together.

I have to tell you something in my office.

I have show you this.

You're going to say, what the heck is he doing?

Okay.

I don't know if you can see there's a bear, a Christmas tree bear.

Yes.

You're thinking, oh, my God, what's this guy?

So cute.

Because my granddaughter, my oldest granddaughter and I had this fascination with.

Because our name, our main character's name is caboose, and caboose is spelled with a K.

Because my oldest granddaughter, her name is Kira, which starts with a K.

And so that's how we came up with the name.

We came up with the name from Caboose because her.

Of her fascination with cabooses.

And it was because of my dad's toy train that I have put in a shadow box.

Because if you look nowadays and there hasn't been cabooses around for 25 years because they stop using them.

And so the only way you get to see them is go to a park where they might have a train and they have a caboose or whatever.

But for children, they have no idea of the history behind Caboose.

And Caboose is such a fun name to say.

Such a fun name.

Yeah, I love that name.

We got Christmas bear tree that I have in my office.

And every time we find a train ornament, we buy it and it goes on this tree.

And of course, it comes out once a year.

It's just something I do with the grandkids.

And now they look for tree ornaments or train ornaments for me.

Train.

It's a theme.

Absolutely.

And that's what I want.

Are you talking about theming it and how you've taken it to another level?

And I just want people to realize that I always say in the show, I probably say this in every show, is that there's no right or wrong way to do things.

When you're starting to promote your book, some people use a PR firm, and that PR firm reaches out to you.

Now, that comes at a cost.

And Tanya, putting these, your public relations book kit together, definitely came at a cost.

If you don't mind sharing, how many of these did you do up and how many did you send out?

Maybe about seven.

Seven, okay.

Yeah, Not a ton.

But I did it to people that I felt would appreciate them.

Well, you're making me feel even more special on thinking, wow, that's incredible.

Thank you again.

This is to help other people is what was the reaction from the other six.

I got two responses that gave me, and they were people that I follow that I admire.

One is an author who was really, I was honored to hear back from her.

She said she was really happy and really just thank you so much for the kit and the.

And, you know, all the goodies.

And she wrote me a beautiful email.

Someone else that I also admire, who I follow, she's just someone that's like a self.

Someone that helps with like self improvement.

Someone who I felt I was thinking of people that I believed would really enjoy the package.

But also this person was someone who I felt inspired me throughout the year to.

To achieve goals.

So I, I mentioned and I personalized each.

Each book, what I wrote inside of the books, like I did for you also.

And I wanted to let them know that I appreciated like the confidence I was given to do the book.

So that was something I mentioned and that was an honor to receive a message back from her.

Some people I didn't hear back from, which is also fine because you send it and you see where it goes, but those were you.

And thank you for that.

And then the two other messages were really appreciated.

Another podcast that I was on, she also really appreciated the book package and I was honored to.

So really, I would say four out of the seven got back to me with maybe about.

Maybe seven.

I would say about seven.

I do.

I know the exact number, but it wasn't a ton.

But it was the people I felt who would really enjoy the book.

Wow.

That phenomenal.

And it's just, it's nice to share.

You can't expect everything that you send out in to the world will come back to you, but you deserve anything that comes back at you.

What a great job.

And I just encourage other aspiring authors to know that, you know what, what Tanya did was very special.

And there's more than one way to promote your book.

And not to get into the weeds too much here, but so the two people that were not.

One was a children's book author, one was an influencer.

And then have they helped you at all in promoting your book?

Caster1 and I would say the person who was a pod on a podcast that I reached out to, she was.

She put it out there for me as similar to how you are, which was wonderful.

The others were, I would say, not so much that they helped me promote the book, but gave me the confidence.

The first one who was an author, she actually did give me some advice prior to writing the book.

It was also appreciated because she told me.

She gave me some information in terms of what to do.

It was like I just reached out to her and she sent me an article about if you're a beginning writer.

But it was a writer, general writer, even.

Just not just for children's book authors.

Just like, what would be.

That's how I found out about if you wanted to get a literary agent.

So that was.

So she absolutely helped me with the process.

The other person for the podcast.

Yes, for sure.

And then the other one was just really.

I appreciated so much that she.

Wow.

Nice.

Nice technique.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I.

I really.

It's.

It was.

It's so sweet.

But you're.

I feel like you're.

You're.

The excitement you have about the package was the most I've received.

So thank you.

I got to tell you one more thing.

I.

Pure package.

And I put it under the bare Christmas tree in my office because I knew my grandchildren were coming over last night.

Every grandchild's different.

So when you have your next child, I can tell you right now, every child is different.

I knew one of them.

She would be the most fascinated.

And she was.

But she waited till the very end before she talked to me about it.

What's going to happen to.

I.

I couldn't.

I said to her, I'm talking to Tanya tomorrow.

So I just said that.

So she's old enough to realize that I couldn't just bundle it up and send it home with her.

So anyways.

But I wanted you to know that I hadn't under the Christmas tree and she noticed it.

This bundle we will be.

Except for the book.

I.

That's why I got another one will be going to our youngest granddaughter.

That's so sweet.

Thank you.

I'm so happy.

That's so nice advice.

You've definitely shared a lot of advice in being a children's book author.

But would you have any other advice that you'd like to share with aspiring book authors who are thinking, how do I be like Tanya and how do.

Like, how do I make this happen?

I'm still learning.

I feel like every day exactly what to do.

But I think you have to be yourself and you have to be unique.

Like the book package.

That something I really wanted to do something that I felt that was like me and someone else who has their own ideas and their own way of promoting or putting it out there.

They would have their own, like, unique.

Putting your unique spin on it.

And I think that's that would be wonderful to.

When you want, when you share a story or you have whatever it is you want to put out in the world, you just, you put your own spin on it.

I think that's important.

But I just, I think the best advice I can give.

The only thing I could say is what I did with this book was something I've wanted to do with many different ideas I've had.

And it's just, I just took a chance and I just went for it.

And I said, I don't really mind if I make mistakes along the way.

I don't mind if I think sometimes I, I try to do things that I want it to be so perfect before it can get out there.

And this time I'm like, no, it's okay.

Put it out there.

I believed in the story.

I did.

But I said, you know, just, even with reaching out to illustrators, like I took a really big chance.

I spoke to someone, I put my idea in their hands and they were, they made me obviously so thrilled.

But took a chance with that and just really took a leap of faith.

And it was just constant, like trial and error and just seeing what would happen.

So I best advice is just keep going.

Do what you put it out there.

Keep going until it happens.

Keep going until it happens.

Because that was a goal of mine, was just to, as I said, to complete it.

And that's why I, I went the self publishing route because I wanted it out there.

Because I felt that if I've delayed it too much by trying to figure out the perfect literary agent for me, trying to figure that would have just.

The book probably would have never been right because I'd really do it.

But no, that's too much reason to know.

Yes.

And I, I want to pick up on your theme about self publishing for a moment because first of all, you talked about it was neat.

You talked about getting it right when you're downloading to Amazon to actually have the book come to life.

Yes.

I can tell you that even with a company like Ingram Sparks, which actually reaches out to other book retailers like Barnes and Noble and those type of other book retailers, it can get to be a little sticky.

And you can't get frustrated.

You just, you just got to keep going like you said.

And I had a little problem with Ingram Sparks.

But you know what?

Eventually I was able to get it fixed and away I go.

The other thing is that I want under people people to understand is that this book is evergreen.

Like Tanya's book, Money time is evergreen.

Because this, you know what you might say this is for 3 to 10 year olds or whatever your audience is.

The beautiful thing about our world is more 3 to 10 year olds just keep coming.

So the opportunity to have this book stay timeless is incredible.

And the message is timeless.

And the other thing I wanted to mention to you because when someone said to me, you know, that your books are given away mostly as gifts, they're bought by parents to give.

It's not a child is running around with 20 bucks in their pocket to buy your book.

So it's usually the parent or the grandparent or family member buying the book for the child.

And so I only want to share this with you.

Is that because we're self published?

I wanted to make a change because I heard about this thing called a book plate.

Have you ever heard of.

I have, yes, in our book.

So I hope I grab one.

So this one doesn't have a book plate.

Then I'm hoping I find one that I have with a book plate.

Ah, okay.

And I was thinking about your clock.

Okay, so look at this.

So we got a heart.

How nice.

Can you see that?

Yes.

Now it says this book belongs to and.

Or the parents can write it or grandparent or whoever, the friend can write a nice message in there.

So I was thinking in your book you could think about on this blank area, you could put the same kind of idea, but make it a clock or whatever.

I'm just throwing that out at you.

Wonderful idea.

Oh, thank you.

And I like sharing these things because it's important that people realize that none of this is stagnant.

The nice thing about publishing on Amazon also is that it's print on demand.

It's not like we.

You went out and printed like in the old days, printed thousands of copies and then had them sitting in your garage.

Exactly.

So that's the nice thing about it is you can go in and modify your book within moments and just upload that part to Amazon and away you go.

You've got your own personalized book plate.

But anyways, I just wanted to share that with you because I think your book is fantastic and it'll be around forever.

And also I wanted to share that advice for aspiring authors.

It's a great idea.

Thank you.

I've spent so much talking with you about aspiring authors, but I really want to talk about, and I always save it for the last part of the show is encouragement for the readers.

So why should children's book readers purchase your book and where is your book available to be purchased?

Oh, thank you.

Well, I think that children's book, well, children's read readers and parents or teachers should purchase the book because we all could benefit from some, you know, discussion and advice on time management.

I think, and I say that for adults and children and all of us, we have many things we want to do and many things we have to do.

And I want everyone to be able to feel that they're, you know, they have a well rounded day and a well rounded life and they're able to, even when it comes to writing a children's book, if this isn't, if this is a goal of yours, fitting that into your day, whatever the goals are.

So I think it would be, that's my advice to them to that I think it's great to purchase the book because it just gives you some ideas on a way to think of time differently.

And it's available on Amazon at this time, Amazon.com Excellent.

Final thought.

Sure.

I guess I would just.

Well, first of all, thank you so much, really, for having me and your encouragement.

And you just, you've given me.

I've just felt so filled with kindness and warmth and I'm just so excited to be here.

And my final thoughts are, as I said before, just if anybody has any ideas to get a book out there, if it's a children's book, if it's a novel, whatever it is, just go for it, do it.

Because we need different ideas put out into the world.

We need everybody's unique perspective on life.

So I think that's my final thought.

Fantastic.

Tanya, thank you so much for being on Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors.