The engaging dialogue between Rick and Chelsea Kim highlights the profound impact of children's literature, centred around Chelsea's debut work, "Carol the Carrot Bowls for the Salad Bowl."

The episode begins with Rick sharing his excitement about the book he plans to read with his five grandchildren.

Chelsea reflects on her teaching background as the catalyst for her writing journey, emphasizing that every child is unique, like the colourful ingredients in a salad. This theme resonates throughout her book, encouraging readers to celebrate diversity and recognize the strength of differences.

Chelsea elaborates on her publishing journey, explaining her choice to work with a hybrid publisher that allowed her to maintain creative control while benefiting from professional editing and marketing support.

She discusses her marketing strategies, primarily focusing on Amazon for book distribution, as she balances multiple roles in her life.

Chelsea's dedication to connecting with young readers is evident through her school visits and virtual engagements, where she aims to inspire children to embrace their individuality and express themselves freely.

As the discussion progresses, Chelsea shares heartfelt stories from readers who have found solace and encouragement in her book. These personal connections highlight the power of storytelling in addressing themes of self-acceptance and resilience.

The episode concludes with Chelsea offering valuable advice to aspiring authors, encouraging them to begin with a clear purpose and to embrace feedback. Her passionate insights illuminate the significance of writing as a medium for fostering understanding and connection, impacting both individual lives and the broader community.

Takeaways:

• Chelsea Kim emphasizes the importance of writing stories that reflect diversity and inclusion.
• The 'salad bowl' concept symbolizes how students' differences strengthen communities.
• Chelsea shares that her inspiration for writing came from her unique classroom experiences.
• Her publishing journey was supported by a hybrid publishing company, balancing control and professionalism.
• The impact of her book extends beyond children to adults, healing inner childhood wounds.
• Engaging children through relatable characters fosters deeper conversations about bullying and self-acceptance.

Chelsea's links referenced in this episode:

• https://chelseastorynook.com
• https://tinyurl.com/CarolTheCarrotBowlsUS
• https://www.youtube.com/@chelseastorynookpodcast
• https://chelseastorynook.myshopify.com
• http://facebook.com/chelseastorynook
• https://www.tiktok.com/@chelseastory_nook
• https://www.instagram.com/chelseastory_nook

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Mirian Laundry Publishing
• IngramSpark
• Shopify

If you can support us in any way, please click on this Tips in the Cookie Jar: " link; we appreciate all contributions.

Chelsea, thanks for joining us today.

It's.

It's a great pleasure.

It was my pleasure as well.

And I had a chance, of course, as you can see in the background, we have your book.

And it's just a fun story.

It's interesting because at least a couple of times a year I have five grandchildren.

And one of the things that we like to do together as a family is go bowling.

I'm looking forward to sharing the book with my grandchildren over the holidays.

So can you tell us a little bit about the inspiration and how it all started for you?

My name is Chelsea Kim.

I'm the author of Carol the Caribou for the Salad Bowl.

So when I set out to write Carol the Caribou for the Salad Bowl, I wanted to reflect the world I saw in my classroom.

I saw it as a vibrant mix of personality, strengths, and the stories.

Teaching in school taught me that no two students are alike.

Some colors were like boldly outside the lines.

As you can see, like students, when they color, right, they don't all color the same, as you can tell.

Like with your five grandchildren, probably saw them colored differently, right?

Absolutely.

Tricked very carefully within them.

But each of them has something unique to bring to the table.

That was the heart of the story.

Everyone belongs, and others were very different.

That's what makes us stronger.

So that's where the whole idea of the salad bowl came from.

And that's where the inspiration came from.

Where it came from my students.

Just out of curiosity, was bowling something that maybe you did with your students?

I know schools take do field trips.

Was that one of the field trips or how did this whole bowling idea come up?

Oh, that's an excellent question.

When I was a kid, I think I believe I was seven or eight years old, I went to bowling often in Los Angeles.

There's a bowling alley in Koreatown.

I went there pretty often during weekends with my friends.

And as I was going there with my friends, I realized that was my hobby.

I have to keep thinking about the remnants of the whole memories when I was a kid.

Sure.

When I become a teacher, I want to take this with my students.

And when I became a teacher, that's when I got the opportunity to take the kids.

And all my students were like, why bully isn't bully for more older people?

And I'm like, you guys, this is pretty fun.

And all the kids really enjoy bullying.

And ads were saying, oh, I can't make it.

How come other kids could strike?

And other kids were like, oh, man, I missed the strike.

And other Kids were like, oh, I only made a spare Mrs.

Kim.

And I'm like, guys, that's life.

And I was like, eureka.

This is about life.

And I resonated bullying as life because some of sometimes in life we miss, we make strikes, we make sp.

And I put that two and two together into my book.

Where live is basically like a bowling.

Absolutely.

I could, like I said to you, I can see that through my grandchildren and how they support each other.

And it creates quite a bit of laughter too.

Right.

Because when you throw your ball in the gutter and you don't.

And you don't knock any pins down at all, it can be quite funny.

Most times it's taken that way.

Nobody's too serious about it.

Yes, exactly.

Exactly.

That's how I put two and two together.

And I had to put that in my book somehow.

I was like, how can I put a bowling and a vegetable two and two together?

I was like, perfect.

A salad bowl.

There you go.

Absolutely.

That's fantastic.

And I'm curious about your publishing approach.

Everybody has.

That's one of the big things when I was first starting out as a children's book author was how was I going to publish this book?

Whether.

And I really wasn't sure about.

I knew about traditional publishing, but I didn't even know that self publishing was an option.

So that was the approach that we took is that we found that self publishing was a good option for us.

But can you tell us a little bit about your story and about how did you go about publishing your book?

So my journey is very interesting that I was very lucky to find a publishing company called Marian Laundry.

Publishing was such an incredible experience.

So the company, they really blend the best of both worlds.

There's a traditional and a self publishing company.

They offer a professional service like editing book design while still allowing authors like me to retain full creative control rights to our work.

I was able to publish my book through a print on demand system which gave me the more flexibility to focus on my own marketing strategy, which was very.

It really stood out to my mentorship.

I really received through that company and it was very invaluable.

It didn't really just help me grow as an author, but also position me as a role model for other aspiring authors.

And I was getting to really focus on my creative side part of as an author while they worked with me as with the author part of it.

So I can really focus on both because without their help, I don't think I was able to really put that together during my Author journey, if that makes sense.

Right.

I was fortunate too because I was one of the people that I just happened to run into was a self published author and he was also a website designer and a book designer, including the format.

It just was one of those things for me that we got very lucky that we had somebody like that.

It sounds like you enjoyed your experience.

So you self published, is that correct?

So yeah, I did.

It was a hybrid published, so published.

So I guess it's 50.

50.

Yes.

Okay.

And so in terms of your distribution, of course, as you can see, I've got your book behind me, which I purchased through Amazon.

So maybe you could just give us a feel for when you say you're 50.

50.

So tell us a little bit about your sales.

So is there some retail?

Is it mostly online?

Is it mostly Amazon and online driven or how are you selling your book?

So I sell my book mostly on Amazon.

The reason I did that is to just organize and just stay put on that so I don't have to because I do a lot of.

I wear different hats.

I'm actually a podcast host.

I actually sell merch.

I also do my other online courses.

I'm trying to launch next year.

I'm doing so many things at once and I cannot focus on just selling my book everywhere because I'm very prone to tech.

So I'm just like, I just want to stay in one, put on my book sales.

So I just have Amazon.

And also IngramSpark is more for distribution purposes.

Right.

And if that makes more sense on that part of book sales.

Yeah, I'm not selling tons of book, but I think I just put on that marketing sales on just focusing on the Amazon.

And you know what, we, I find even for ourselves, we're very much, very similar.

Amazon, of course, we have set it up through ingramsparks also, so that gives us a broader reach.

We've been fortunate too because our book is takes place in the Rocky Mountains and we're very fortunate that we have friends who own a bookstore in the Rocky Mountains and they've been doing very well with our book.

Do you make any school visits or do public readings or what about what's your approach there?

Yes, I do school visits.

I do virtual visits recently.

So I did my book launch in July.

So I only did few for this year because I was busy doing the podcast hosting.

But it went really well.

I just started with the virtual visit for now because there was school just barely open this year.

So it went really well.

For my virtual visit.

I actually did A whole presentation for the kids.

And that went super well.

I thought it was not going to work out because I couldn't actually interact with the kids.

But the kids really loved it.

They're like, oh, I see the author through the screen.

And I actually had to talk with them.

They came up with this.

They came to the screen and I interacted with this with the students through my.

And I send the teacher all my activities and they had it printed out already for them.

And my activity is very interesting because it's very different.

It's not where they do it and they finish it.

It's actually an ear project where they write a letter to themselves and it's actually a goal driven project where they write a letter a year after.

So they say, oh dear Chelsea, a year from now you're going to achieve this goal.

And after a year they actually look at that goal and see if they achieved it.

Oh, fantastic.

Those are the type of activity I do with the kids in my school business.

And I looked at your website, I've got a few questions about that.

But do you have your activity pages on your website?

Oh yes, I do have my activity pages on my website.

If you guys go there, I have free activity pages.

Those doesn't really coordinate with my author visits because my visits are very specific and personalized activities just based on the schools.

So they're very different based on the school.

So it's very personalized activities.

But the ones that you guys gonna see on the websites are like matching vegetables.

They're very cute guys.

So it's free.

You guys can download it.

It's very cute.

So you guys can download it at home.

Cut it.

I think there's matching vegetables.

There's.

I have to look it up.

It's been a while.

I think you can match some fruits and vegetables.

Like a lot of tons of activities.

You can go.

I am going to be updating my website next year.

It's going to vamp it up a lot more better.

I'm going to have a lot of things going on my website.

Go check it out next year because I am going to update it a lot more better.

This year was just, you know, I'm just testing out the waters because website was not my focus.

This my Instagram.

So if you guys really want a more updated version, it's going to be my Instagram, which is my main channel.

Okay.

Okay.

And that leads me to website development because as a self published author, one thing that was recommended that we should have a website before we launched our book.

But in our case, we were so excited about bringing our book to life by D.

Oh, and on top of that, we a website.

So we actually.

It took us a little longer.

We launched our book and then it was about six months before we actually launched our website.

But just like you, our website is a work in progress.

And so that's what I wanted to ask you about.

Did you have your website completed before you launched your book?

No, actually, I had to delay my website after my book came out because honestly, I didn't know where this book was heading to.

I had to see where this book was going to.

I had to have the feel of it.

It's like when you guys have a baby, you have to know what's the development?

What's this brain development is going to be like, how's this.

How is this kid going to grow?

What's the size of this baby going to be?

It's like basic.

When book has come out, what is the audience going to be like?

What was.

What is my audience want to be?

So what does my audience want from me?

So that's why I really make my website large enough.

I just made a very basic after.

Right after my launch, which is why you guys go see.

My website is very simple, straight to the point.

It's not very fancy.

It's not like how your website rig is very fancy.

I don't know how you had the time.

My website is very like, oh, when you just go.

You see the merch when you go see his website, you know, maybe.

Actually I really liked your website.

I really like your.

I do.

And you know what, it's interesting because I was thinking, oh, man, what can I learn from Chelsea?

Because I was thinking, I've got to improve my website.

So thank you for saying that because all these thoughts, actually, through the holiday season, I've got five or six projects I'm working on to make some improvements to the website.

And part is.

Part of that is we're looking to.

In our book, we have what I call activity pages.

And at the back of our book, we encourage children to sit down with their parents or grandparents and find pictures on their iPad or iPhone or a smart tablet or whatever, find pictures that they can create a story from and then sit down and write that story.

Because that's actually what happened with myself, my granddaughter, my oldest granddaughter.

We actually, we had taken so many pictures of all of our adventures together.

And she said, one day, papa, we got to turn these into a story.

And that's how it all started.

So we created these Activity pages, not similar to what you're doing, but you've got a very unique approach.

But we want parents and grandparents to sit down with their children or grandchildren and write stories of their adventures.

It's very neat what you've done.

So when I look at your website, the first thing I have to say is that if people have to buy your book just for all the characters, you've got so many great characters.

And so, yeah, I know it's Carol the Carrot, but if you look at all of the characters that you have, there's so many colorful characters.

Like you said, there's so many colorful people in this world.

And to actually have all these colorful characters, it's just fantastic.

When I looked at your website.

Oh, yeah, that's a great.

People were looking at the page.

What page number is that, by the way, Chelsea?

It's 26 to 27.

That is the.

Almost the end of the page where this is my favorite page, actually.

I'm huge.

It's so much fun.

So for those who won't see this through video but will be listening to it through audio, Chelsea's talking about her inner page.

Inner book.

There's a page where there's all of her characters come together, and it's quite a unique situation with the coach and.

Yeah, a lot of fun and just with the characters involved.

And that leads me to what I thought was very interesting.

And I think maybe not so much from a reader standpoint, but from a Maybe an author standpoint.

Your merchandising page, like your tab, when I tapped on the.

Clicked on the tab and it opened up, and I thought, wow, this is a lot of merchandise because you've got so many colorful characters that you've turned into some fun stuff.

Like the shopping bags, I thought were really unique because they just shout at you, and your sweatshirts and T shirts and your mug.

That's beautiful.

So I thought, wow.

So tell us a little bit about that, because I noticed it's powered by Shopify, so can you give us a little background on how did you put all of that together?

So I figured out.

So since you just said my characters are full of colors, I cannot just let this sit in a book.

And I want to express this on a merchandise.

I wanted to have this just express it through a material where kids can have it on their sweater.

They feel like they can actually carry you with them, especially like this.

Hopefully, I could launch my plushie.

They actually put.

I actually carry this with me to book events.

I actually.

This is because it's very limited edition.

But in terms of merchandise, I had to work it through Shopify.

I highly recommend Shopify to my authors because it's super easy to handle.

I don't have to deal with like shipping or anything like that.

You just need to do sampling through Shopify and you just put your pictures in there.

It is super simple for authors or any business owners out there.

Pick your samples and everything.

But it was perfect for me because all I needed was a simple, like merch.

Just like a cup, right, like this.

So you didn't have to spend.

Invested a lot of money to set it up.

Is that correct?

Yes, I was.

Yeah, exactly.

I was about to say that, like, literally I don't have to spend any money on like, how you say, inventories or sampling like that, because that's what I did first.

I want to sample my own things just to see if actually customers will like it.

Just like the mug of like.

I was like, oh, this is actually really good quality stuff.

Yes.

And I actually like to launch it.

If I didn't really like it, I don't.

I just delete it.

And that's all I need to do.

That was very simple and I really highly recommend Shopify.

I'm not sponsored at all.

I just highly recommend it.

I had to test it myself because I didn't see any authors doing this, which was very surprisingly.

No one was doing it.

I'm glad I was a good role model for authors so that they could start doing themselves.

I think there are some authors who did different companies, which is really good.

As long as you guys have a good company that I could work with.

You know what?

I thought about it and I thought about all the characters.

And of course, again, you're thinking trying to find additional ways to create revenue because even if you self publish or you hybrid publish, it's still a large investment upfront that you're doing.

And then you have to find.

Okay, you'd have to sell thousands of books to even pay for the next book.

So if you could actually find ways of creating more merchandise like you said, if you look, I have caboose right here.

Oh, yes.

And we actually believe that or not this is about 10 years ago.

My wife and I were in San Francisco and we went and found.

And my.

At that time, my granddaughter and I were developing this idea, but we just had it in our minds.

We didn't have a.

Like, we knew it was going to be a bear, but we didn't know exactly how we were going to do it.

And to be in that shop, one of those stuff where they make stuffed animals and they created this for us.

And then like you said, the thing is, then how do you parlay that, turn that into merchandise?

It's not always that easy, right?

Exactly.

Yes.

And when I had to carry, when I had to make this one, this one, it was not from Shopify.

I actually had to Google it.

Yes.

Trust and Plushie and just popped out of nowhere.

And I was like, okay, I'm going to go with this one.

And we just emailed back and forth, they sent me samples, and bada bing, bada boom, it just popped up.

And everybody loved this sample.

And all the authors are asking me, like, where did you get it?

And I send them the whole link and everybody's starting to get the same website.

And I'm like, so have you made a lot of those yet or did you just do the one sample?

Oh, and I had to make a lot of these because, you know, some certain companies, they have a contract where you have to make a hundred of the samples with the contract.

And then.

But they can have a certain discount where if you do boat shipping, it's much cheaper than, I guess, the plane shipping.

I guess what you.

Plane shipping.

Much more expensive than the boat shipping.

Just letting you guys know for sure.

Yeah.

And what's interesting, because I.

We were taking caboose with us to readings, but we were thinking, actually I went and bought another one.

Like, I've only got two, because we know that kids want to hold.

Hold your main character right in their hands and it adds to it.

And actually the bookstore that we're in in the Rocky Mountains, they actually, the owner of the store said, rick, you should get some plushies done.

Because we find we get that double sale.

People like to have the book and they like to buy the plushie to go with the book.

So.

Oh, yeah, that's something that we're working on.

Thank you for sharing that.

It's quite interesting.

And with your graphics, maybe just tell us a little bit more about.

Do you generally just do the main couple of characters or what else do you do in terms of your characters with the graphics?

Yes.

Oh, so you want to know about.

Like when you were choosing your merchandise on Shopify the.

Your characters, which characters did you say?

Oh, those are the characters we want to use primarily.

Okay.

So it is expensive to have a bunch of characters in the merch.

So I have to pick the main one.

So I choose the main characters, which I wanted to, of course, choose my main character, which is Carol, the Carrot.

Right.

Then in the character, if you guys read the book is Mandy the Mandarin, which she eventually chooses as her partner.

As a bullying teen partner, which is.

If you guys read page 15, she eventually chooses Mandy the Mandarin because they both get bullied in school and they both are like, since we're both orange, why not we just be partners?

So if you guys see my merchandise, like the mug or anything like that, and of course I have to put the family together because I think family, the symbolism of family, friendship, the symbolism of Carol the carrot, like the symbolism of leadership.

I can do it self doubt, all those things.

I had to put it in my merch because I just want to symbolize that merch into my sweater, into my merch of mug or sweater.

Or what if.

What did I put?

Oh, tote bag.

Everything that symbolizes I had to put in my merch.

But everything else, I feel like maybe one day, if I have enough money to put all my characters.

Yes, I would love to.

Okay, so tell me, when you.

So what was your total upfront cost to start your Shopify page?

Oh, I think the total front was.

I believe it was, I think was $50 for some front.

So not very expensive to help you, again, have another way of creating revenue?

No, not now.

It was surprising.

Not that expensive.

Expensive.

Okay.

When you keep up with the maintenance, that's when you're like, oh, okay.

It doesn't really.

So it means, like, when you have to have a lot of customers and buy your merchandise and get the money back, then you see, okay, this is actually worth the money.

But if there's nothing coming back, then you're like, oh, that $50 was a lot, if that makes sense.

I just want to.

I want everybody to know this is like real business thing where you like, oh, this is $50.

But if it doesn't come out anything, then you're like, oh, did I just waste my money?

But at least it's another way to create the potential for revenue, right?

Yes, exactly.

With your book, I'm curious too.

Was there a specific person or was there a specific event in your life that motivated you to write your book?

Yes, it was my students and myself.

As a kid, my students really motivated me to write this book.

Especially two years ago when I retired teaching, I taught a student leadership program.

While I was teaching middle school mathematics, I actually was coordinating an ASB program.

Okay.

In my student leadership program, I had a different amount of students.

I had a student leadership president, I had a vice president.

I had a lot of position student leadership students and each of them, they were so unique.

One of them were hiding behind the corner saying they're doing their own thing.

How do I purchase a curtain for our school school dance?

One of them were like, hey, you do this, you do that.

We have to get this done.

And then one of them, like, shy, but they're like counting money for our school dance.

Each of them had their own unique ways to get this project done.

Did that help you in your character development in your book?

Yes.

This is how the author brain works.

It's it this.

I'm like, how can I make this into a character?

I want.

I really wanted to incorporate all my students into my book.

And then as I was making my book, I gotta put this into my book.

And they're all colorful.

And I'm like, wait, what is colorful?

What is bright?

And I'm like, vegetables, fruits.

Great.

They're both beautiful and all like different shapes.

And then if you guys go on your jobs, everybody asks you if you are a fruit or a vegetable, what would you be?

That's very cool.

You don't.

I'm going to put that in my book.

And everybody, when they say, is your book about healthy book?

Is it about like a healthy living book?

I'm like, no, it's about.

More about that.

It's about diversity.

It's about life lesson book.

If you guys actually read my book, it's actually a life lesson book.

What really molded me again, as you were asking earlier, it's actually about myself too.

When I was a little kid, as a Korean American, I actually was lost as my identity as a Korean American.

I wanted to fit in because I was born as an American, right?

And I was growing up and I was like, what am I?

Am I Korean or am I American?

Should I call myself Chung or should I call myself Chelsea?

And if you guys see my author, I put both of them, both my name, Chelsea and Chong, because I want to represent myself, because they're both me.

This is where the character comes in.

So Carol is myself as self confidence.

If you see my character, she's more like, I can do it.

Let's just do it.

Who cares what happens in life, right?

And then the Mandarin is the little orange right here.

Her character is more like self doubt.

If you see, you know, Carol, you know what?

I don't think I can do this.

This is too scary.

I don't think Tomato thinks I can do this.

Like, I'm getting bullied.

Like my other school was really like, they think I can do it.

But this school Didn't.

Didn't like me.

They don't like me.

Interesting.

Both of them are me.

So that's how I character develop this book, if that makes sense.

And are there.

I don't want you to divulge any people's names, but are there actual people that are represented like people in your life that are represented as one of the characters in the book?

You know what, Rick?

Is everybody, like everybody in this book is my life.

I can't exactly say this is somebody.

This is somebody.

It's not them.

Right.

It could be anybody.

Whatever it is.

You know what?

This is not even me.

It could be you, main character.

I just want this book to be represented as you guys to be the main character of your life.

Carol the carrot is a representative of you guys.

Whenever you guys feel like Mandy, sometimes it does.

It's okay.

It's not a bad character.

It's just for yourself to say, you're okay to be Mandy.

It's okay for yourself to be Carol.

Or sometimes we could be Tomato.

Those moments where we bully somebody, but we self reflect back and say, you know what, Carol the Carol was pretty cool at that time.

And we.

So I feel like all these characters could be anybody.

And I just want to say that.

To you guys if you could tell us in like a few words the theme.

So what's the underlying theme of the book?

Teamwork, embracing differences, inclusion and diversity.

And would that also be the central teaching or is there something else that you think is a lesson in there?

It's a huge lesson in there.

I just want you guys to feel like when you guys read this book, it's not only for kids, is also for adults.

I see a lot of adults came to me, surprisingly more than the kids itself.

They're like, thank you, Chelsea.

One day I saw this adult, a full grown adult came to me, Chelsea, thank you for making this book a stranger.

I was like, oh, yeah, thank you.

What was your name, by the way?

So and so told me you healed my inner child.

I was like, oh, can you tell me more about that?

You healed my inner child of not only you found my identity.

You healed the inner part of me, saying that it's okay just to be me.

It's okay to be who I am, where I came from.

The word it's okay was such a comforting word.

Yes.

And it was like, so settling.

That environment just changed all of a sudden.

There's the words and there's the illustrations.

So tell us a little bit about how those combine together to, for example, this person you're talking about to motivate them and for them to come up to you, for them to be Mandy to almost Carol, but coming to you.

Yeah, they exactly told me the page.

Page 14 and 15.

Guys, if you guys have.

If I have time to read this page, that exactly told me that this page.

Actually, she said she cried when she read this page.

She read this thousands of times, she told me.

And she literally couldn't stop reading this to her grandchildren because she keeps.

She keeps crying.

And she was like, okay, guys, I'm so sorry.

I had to read this again.

Let me read this again.

I'm so sorry I read it.

I'm like, okay.

Oh, my gosh.

Thank you so much.

I'll leave this to you guys.

As she walked down the hallway, she heard someone sobbing in the bathroom.

She opened the door.

Orange, are you okay?

Orange shook her head.

I had lots of friends at my old school, but not here.

Why does everyone make fun of me?

Carol didn't know what to say.

And I'm not an Orange, I'm a Mandarin.

But no one cares.

I care, said Carol.

Do you have a another name?

Mandy the Mandarin.

Don't laugh.

I won't laugh.

I'm Carol the Carrot together.

And that made it okay.

Wow, that's fantastic.

This section just made her healing.

And it was just simple, it was just humorous.

But at the same time, it did make her heal in its.

And I.

It was just a countless moment where that was a lady.

I.

She was coming from a different background.

Her of.

She was a grown woman.

Very interesting story.

And there was another.

A father who came to me saying, thank you so much.

He was actually hesitating.

Thank you so much.

I was trying to find you everywhere in this book event.

And I was like, oh, my God, thank you so much.

And who are you?

What's your name?

I said the same thing.

Oh, my God.

Thank you so much.

But who are you?

What's your name?

I just want to tell you, I never had a conversation with my son at the dinner table.

And you created space to create a conversation, an actual conversation, because of your book.

And I was like, wow, do tell me, like, what kind of conversation you actually made.

And it was like, not only.

It was just.

I thought it was about healthy food because I was trying to make my kid eat healthy food.

But not only that, I was actually teaching him about all these things about diversity because I heard that diversity was so hard to talk about at school.

But this made it very simple.

And also he was getting to talk about Bullying because he didn't know that his son was getting bullied at school.

And then this expressed how bullying was not okay.

And then he found out his son was getting bullied.

He found out that his son was getting identity lost.

He was his again, his son was getting identity lost.

But he found out that because of this book, his son got more encouragement and more confidence.

And he said, you know what?

I want to be like Carol the Carrot.

Wow.

His son keeps talking to his father every dinner time now.

Oh, that's fantastic.

You know what?

Isn't that great when your book fosters that type of feeling and conversation?

Like, you never really think, oh, I've written this children's book, but you never think, oh, like, what's it going to do in terms of creating conversation between either a child and their parent or a child and their grandparent?

Quite interesting.

Yes.

And, yeah, just to go back to your question, that motivated me as an author, and also that's how I get to create a character through illustration that not only is cute or beautiful, but more than that.

So this leads me to my next question.

Is your writing process.

So tell us a little bit about when you first started and listening to how things have happened for you with your.

With people who have read your book.

And coming up to you, has your writing process changed from when you first started Carol and to now, like, how is it evolving?

My writing process, When I first started my first draft with Carol the carrot was not Carol the Carrot itself.

It was very random.

It was about to be something different.

I should have wrote a note down what it used to be called.

But I wanted to write something different other than salad bowl.

I just wanted to write something like, oh, Carol the Carrot was writing a school bus.

And then she got an A at school, and then she got into this school game, and that's it.

And I'm like, some of this seems boring.

I think that's so typical.

And it seems too, there is no challenge.

I want some challenge.

Because a lot of kids go through challenge.

Absolutely.

Because that's how our life is.

And I was like, I want to incorporate a sport in there.

That's how I keep developing my writing.

I'm like, I have to put.

I have to put something.

And that's how our writing comes in.

And we learned this from our school.

We have to put a climax in there.

We have to put our resolution in there.

We have to do this and that.

And I literally, Rick, I had to crumble my paper, threw it up.

And like, lots of movies, see that with authors where you literally, absolutely throw it in their back.

I literally did that.

I thought it was in the movies, but I literally had to do that in real life.

Right.

Doing an event, crumbling my paper.

I can't do this.

No.

I was literally burned out from writing.

And I think as a writer, just keep writing draft after draft and after draft.

But my discipline from a teacher, as a teacher really disciplined me from keep writing, don't give up.

Keep writing, don't give up.

Really had me disciplined to really making a book and to write my second book right now, which I want to announce that I'm actually on my second book with my manuscript right now.

I'm working on the series for my Carol a Cara second series.

Fantastic.

Yes.

And that really helped me from my first book of how I can transition that and really help me practice that as a writer of, oh, this is how it works.

Oh, this is how it works.

And I'm actually learning that from my editor, which is Sharon Jennings, which absolutely amazing editor.

And I really learned from my editor.

I learned from her feedbacks.

I learned from my audience.

Most of my audience are from my parents and other authors and other, like, family members.

They're amazing feedback.

They're not more critical things.

I think most people come from the kids.

They're like, can you make it more fun or can you make less veggies?

Can you unicorn?

And I'm like, put more unicorn in days.

Do that.

Very interesting.

I always think about, did you do any research?

But so would you say your research was.

Was your readers?

My research was my readers.

My research was more of my.

My reviews.

Okay.

And also when I was writing my first book of Carol the Carrot, my research was based on going to bookstores and libraries when I was first writing my book, because I literally had to go into categories of what I really aim for, such as for my authors out there, I really recommend going to the themes of what you really interested in, such as if you're interested in bullying or anti bullying, go to those books, get those books and see how those authors really tell their stories.

And why are there like number one bestselling authors or why they won those awards and see what moved the audience and read those and research those writers.

Okay.

Because you talked about.

And I don't want to take away from this because I think it's so important you talked about the adults that came to you.

But maybe tell us a little bit about your experiences with the children who read your book and how did they view it?

What was their thoughts and how did you impact them?

Wow.

The kids, amazing.

They're.

They're the critics of all of our children's book.

They think they're the actual critics.

They see you and my book is actually very interesting story.

More than the adults.

Because when you see first see the kids, you should see their faces.

They're like, wait, a carrot?

It's not like unicorn.

It's not something beautiful rainbow.

And the aesthetic pleasing what they want, it's not trending, I think.

But when they open the book, they're like, I see where this is going.

Okay.

Actually, this is fun.

Okay, I'll see, I'll see this.

Okay, I'll buy it.

That's them.

And they actually buy the book.

And they want their mom and dad to buy their book.

And this is real fact.

I'm not saying, I'm not sugarcoating anything because I want you guys to see the perspective of Carol the character through kids lens.

Absolutely.

It's totally different with adults.

That's why adults like my book more than the kids.

Because kids likes cute and pretty pictures.

And if you guys want more kids audience or kids customers make cute and aesthetically pleasing books, you guys cannot make books that you like.

You have to make kids.

You have to make books that kids like.

If you guys want to more kids based audience, that's.

I'm just giving you advice.

Well, you know what?

And I couldn't agree with him more, Chelsea, because you know what?

If it wasn't for my grandchildren, I actually call like my oldest granddaughter was like my awakening in terms of my imagination because she triggered all that.

If it wasn't for her saying, we did all these adventures together.

But I looked at it as if we went for a hike or we went.

I taught her how to ski, or we went horseback riding or whatever.

In her, her mind it was much more than that.

And in my mind it was, you know what?

I was getting to do something with my granddaughter, which was skiing.

But then we ended up writing a story about these people from Arkansas, because what we were skiing in the Canadian Rocky Mountains and there was this young couple from Arkansas, and Arkansas doesn't get much snow.

So we were thinking, how did, how do you end up even knowing how to snowboard when you're from Arkansas?

And then we actually got to spend time in a ski gondola talking to them.

And then when we got off the gondola, what we didn't realize is we went up the same ski run and we got to the top.

Unfortunately, the young ladies ski board a snowboard Went rushing down the hill and my five year old granddaughter who was just learning how to ski, she chased it down like I was like.

And she was chasing this snowboard and she rescued it.

So we turned that into a story.

But if it wasn't for her, that story wouldn't have come to light.

But it was, we call it Riding the Rainbow to Arkansas.

And that was how we developed the story.

That is amazing.

Oh my God.

Yeah, that's amazing.

So when you talk about success of your book, tell us a little bit about how are you measuring success.

I know we'd all like to sell thousands of books, but how are you measuring your success?

So success for me is more like I want to say I thought success is going to be like, yes, I got bestseller, I made so much money.

But it's more than that actually because I didn't make a lot of money through my books actually.

It's actually more than that.

It was the fulfillment from parents, educators, children.

Just seeing their smile was the most success fulfillment I ever felt in my life.

Even from teaching.

All the teachers out there probably relate of when you teach something, you're like, you see the kid go like, I found it a eureka.

I can solve it.

Like when you see those kids brighten their eyes and you oh, I taught them something.

It's the same feeling when you make a book and you see their kids really want to read your book or a full grown adult tear their eyes while you read your book.

I feel like that's success in changing people's life or people from the hospital, a patient really want to have your book in their hands because you're changing their lives.

I think that success for me is a definition of that fantastic.

I just love to hear those stories because again, we all know that there's millions of children's books and we'd all like to base have a number one bestseller or whatever.

But at the end of the day, how you've worded it, Chelsea, is that's how I feel also is changing even just one life is so neat.

Exactly.

And motivating people.

So tell me now the role of writing in your life.

So what's.

How has it when you first started to now what's the role of writing in your life?

Well, writing is both a creative outlet and a way to make a lasting impact.

I dedicate a specific time during the week to write.

Okay.

Treating it as an essential, like important part of my routine.

It fits into my life as a way to express my passion and share a meaningful story with the world.

So I feel like role of writing and as a writer or even write, writing has become a routine and it just became part of my life now.

Wow.

Wow.

And so what advice would you give to under aspiring or aspiring authors?

What advice would you give them?

I love this question.

Start with your why?

What message do you want to share with the world?

Once you know that, stay consistent and don't be afraid to seek feedback.

Surround yourself with supportive people who believe in your vision.

Just like Rick.

Don't let perfectionism delay your progress.

That's a very good point and that's a really good lesson because I think Chelsea and myself, I'd like to luck myself with Chelsea is that, you know what, you just have to start and then believe that you can do it.

And I think anyone can actually create a children's book.

You just have to have, like you said, Chelsea, the passion and find something that you're really out and you can make it happen.

Exactly.

So let's talk a little bit about the readers.

Now, we've talked about aspiring authors, but what's your encouragement for your readers?

What do you, what would you like to say to your readers?

Whether it's sometimes, maybe it's not children that are listening to this podcast, but it's their moms or dads or grandmas or grandpas.

What would you like to say to encourage them to read your book?

I want readers, I want them to encourage to pick up Carol the Care Ball sort of salad bowl.

Absolutely.

It's more than just a story, guys.

It's a tool for fostering leadership and inclusiveness.

And jokes all aside, I just want everybody to just pick up a book for the kids.

It's very important to just read to your kids, whether you're adult or an educator, yourself or grandparents.

Everyone should be reading a book because it's such a life lesson way of connecting with your kids.

Even five minutes a day, one hour, it doesn't really matter if you can look through your phone for an hour.

Looking at a book for just five minutes could probably change your life.

Just like how those two stories I told you about that one lady and the one gentleman, the father, I told you it impacts their kid for the rest of their life and you can actually connect with your kids or with your students or with your grandchildren and it impacts the whole world.

And you guys, if you want to purchase my book again, go on Amazon.

Absolutely.

Facebook as well.

Thanks, Chelsea.

Final thoughts.

Is there something that you'd like to share?

I know you talked about you've got a You're currently working on another book.

Tell us a little bit about that and maybe in your final thoughts here also.

Yes.

So I'm working on my second book of Carol the Carrot series.

It's going to be more this time.

I'm actually listening to my audience again, like how I told you guys, you should really listen to your audience.

I'm going to be talking about more about encouragement, inner healing, about a loss, but more for encouraging yourself.

I think that's gonna be the theme of my next book.

Right.

And it's gonna be such an amazing, magical story.

So I really highly encourage for you guys to grab that next year.

It's gonna launch next year in spring.

I hope you guys can look out for that.

Just go follow me on my Instagram.

That's my main channel, which is ChelseaStory Nook on my Instagram.

And follow me on my YouTube channel, where I also interview other authors.

Chelsea story.

No podcast.

And yeah, just follow me there.

And I'm really, I'm very deeply grateful for this amazing opportunity.

I'm loving having you.

Could you do me a favor also, because you talked about your editor, you talked about other resources.

If you could actually send me a quick note with those with the links, what I will do is I'll make sure they get into the show notes so that other aspiring authors, if they want to reach out, if your editor wants more work, we could send them the link to that person or whatever.

If there's resources you think that you'd like to share, you could just send me a quick email with the links and I'd be happy to put that in the show notes.

Yeah, sure.

I will send resource links and I'll share my links and all the resource links as much as I can.

Yeah.

And yeah, man, thank you so much for this opportunity.

I'm such, it's such an honor.

You know what?

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

Your generosity of and your insights will definitely help a lot of people, especially aspiring authors and readers.

And we promise to provide our.

Like I said before, but we promised to provide our audience with links to Chelsea's book, Carol the Carrot Bowls for the Salad bowl site.

Because like I said to you, I know Chelsea said she wants to work on her website more, but it's already a fun website already, so definitely visit that.

And also, if you've enjoyed this episode, please hit the subscribe button and listen to our next episode, which will be a guest who's written a book called Santa Simon and it's perfect for this time of year.

And don't forget to grab Carol the Carrot book as a stocking stuffer because what a perfect time of the year to do that again.

Feel free to share this episode with friends and family, and we hope we've inspired you as an author or a reader to enjoy more, as Chelsea stated, to endure more reading of children's books.

Because like Chelsea said, it only takes five minutes a day to definitely have an incredible influence on a young person's life.

Thank you, Chelsea.

Thank you so much.

Rick.

Thank you so much for this opportunity and this wonderful, beautiful platform.