Episode Summary

Sherry Cerino is a children's book author and founder of Ella's Way, a nonprofit built on a simple but powerful mission: teaching kids kindness, diversity awareness, and acceptance through storytelling.

Sherry traces her journey from writing her debut book, Ella and the All Stars — where Ella navigates her world alongside a cast of unique underwater friends — to growing Ella's Way from a small passion project into a full nonprofit that supports authors and equips schools and community programs with resources.

She shares what it actually takes to build a children's book business: navigating the publishing world, connecting with other authors, and turning a story idea into something that reaches real classrooms and real kids. It's a conversation about how literature shapes empathy in young readers — and an invitation for aspiring authors to bring more kindness into the world through their own stories.

In This Episode:

• How Ella and the All Stars became the foundation for a larger mission
• The evolution of Ella's Way from idea to nonprofit
• How Ella's Way supports schools, community programs, and a growing network of children's authors
• Sherry's advice for navigating the publishing landscape
• Why storytelling is one of the most powerful tools for teaching empathy and acceptance

Takeaways:

• Sherry Cerino, a children's book author, founded Ella's Way to promote diversity and kindness.
• Ella's Way began with the publication of Sherry's first book, Ella and the All Stars, in 2013.
• The organization supports authors by purchasing their books and donating them to schools and libraries.
• Ella's Way emphasizes the importance of kindness and acceptance in children's literature.
• Authors within Ella's Way benefit from collaboration and support during quarterly meetings and special projects.
• The awards program for children's books encourages authors to focus on themes of kindness and diversity.

Links referenced in this episode:

• ellasway.com
• Stenetta Anthony
• Noel Foy
• Carmella Alexander
• Catherine Felts Clark
• Ralph Tufo

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Ella's Way

I'm Sherry Serino.

I am a children's book author from North Andover, Massachusetts, and I'm also the founder of an organization called Ella's Way.

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

Sheri is not only, as she stated, a public children's book author, but started a fantastic children's book authors organization, Ella's Way, and I look forward to a conversation.

I was introduced to Ella's Way because I've had several of your Ella's Way children's book authors as guests.

Carmel Alexander, Katherine Clark, Felt Sonetta Anthony, Noel Foy, and Ralph Tufo.

They're such great children's book authors and they love your organization.

So for our listening audience, I will definitely have links to each person I mentioned to their podcast episode in our show.

Notes Sheri, before we get into the details of your organization, can you explain to me how you became a children's book author and how that led to you forming this organization, Ella's Way.

Great.

All right, thanks, Rick, for having me.

I really appreciate it.

Ella's Way actually began with my first children's book.

It is the story of a little starfish that goes swimming with her sister Violet.

And they get Ella gets lost at sea.

And in order to make her way back home again to Starfish Lagoon, she befriends some very unusual sea sea creatures.

And an example is a seahorse that wears a tiny eye patch.

There's a lobster with just one claw.

There's a very unusual looking trumpet fish.

And she realizes that all of these characters are really unique and different, but they're all very kind to her.

And they did eventually help spoiler alert get her back to Starfish Lagoon.

And at the end of the story, you do find out that Ella is different in her own way.

And many people don't realize this unless I actually read the book with them, but Ella is a purple starfish and her father is blue and her mother is red.

So red and blue make purple biracial starfish family as well.

So all of the characters are unique and different in their own way.

And as I started to do readings in schools and such, I wanted to develop an organization that I could put that book as well as future books under an umbrella.

And I thought Ella is a very kind starfish.

So let's call it Ella's Way.

It's the way of being kind to others.

But Ella is also an acronym for what My original purpose of the book was is to introduce children to diversity awareness, disability awareness, and being a friend with anyone that might be different than them in some way.

So ELLA actually stands for Early Learning Leads to Accept.

So that's how the book evolved from just some experiences.

And I know we'll probably be talking about that later as well, but some experiences that I had as a nurse and people not being as kind as they probably could be.

And growing up, I loved to make up little stories on my own.

And then I decided that put on a bucket list that I always wanted to write a children's book.

And then the idea came to me for writing the children's book, and I wanted it to be an introduction to acceptance and kindness.

So that's how it basically all came about.

So I thought, okay, let's make it really interesting for the child and very colorful as well.

I encourage everybody to go to Ella's way.com, your website, and have a look.

And wow, you have an incredible website with so much to offer.

And the amount of children's book authors in your organization is outstanding and incredible.

Did you envision that when you started, or what was your vision?

I really didn't think of that when I started.

I started it as an LLC back in the day, and I started reading to schools and meeting teachers and such.

And I went to a presentation by a wonderful gentleman that was blind, and he actually said, if you want to really go with this thing, you need to be fearless and develop it into a nonprofit, because then you're eligible for grants and donations and things like that.

And at that point I realized with the grants that I could actually start gifting books to schools.

So that money came in and then it went back out in the form of classroom presentations and book donations.

Wow.

And it evolved from there even further.

Yes.

And, you know, that's terrific because it's amazing.

The next question I want to do delve into is because as a children's book author myself, I've written two children's books with my grandchildren, and our original book is called the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear with my oldest granddaughter.

We co author together.

And then we wrote our second book, which is called High Drinks from the Big Head Folk Music Festival, which I co wrote with my oldest granddaughter and my middle granddaughter.

And it's just been an incredible thing.

But what I soon learned was I learned from the publishing end of it.

There's a lot of ways to definitely go about publishing a children's book.

But the biggest difficulty for anyone once they have a children's book in their hand is how do you build a children's book business from it?

Because now you have a product like, how do you market it?

And so I want to jump into that a bit with you, and I think that'll expand on this too.

So talk to us about how you saw your children's book business when you first started.

Did the Ella's Way your organization, did you use that as a starting point to build your children's book business?

Because I notice you do promote your books on through the ala's Way website.

It was a jumping off point.

When I first started, I really just envisioned myself going to schools and sending home book order forms with the children.

And any author can you can make get your books into hands of a lot of children and make some decent money to pay yourself back for your publishing costs by going to schools and selling your books there.

And then I also wanted to do different events, holiday events or church group events, things like that and selling books there.

So it started off with that.

And then I realized that there are so many wonderful characters in my first book that I could expand that into more children's books.

So I took the time and I do have five children's books now.

And congratulations on yours, by the way.

Thank you very much.

That's lovely.

And so I did expect expanded into five children's books.

And then when I went to an event, I had a new book to share with everyone.

If I went to a school, invited me back to read a new book.

So you start to by word of mouth and by having new books, getting invited to the same school or going into different schools and expanding your book business a little bit by doing events and things like that.

Schools were gone virtual.

You couldn't go into a school anymore.

If they did open, they certainly weren't inviting any outside guests to come in.

So I had to be a little bit more creative.

And I'm like, my whole mission with Alice Way is to start to spread kindness and acceptance.

So I wonder how many other authors out there are doing the same thing that I'm doing and maybe this is a good time to get to know some of them.

So since we're all kind of focusing on the same mission.

So the miracle of social media.

I started to put the word out that I was looking for other like minded authors and they came out of the woodwork.

Everyone was so excited that I'm that a lot of first time authors saying, oh, I have this book and it is about autism.

Oh, I have a book, it is out with a disability.

We all started talking and made the decision then to expand Ella's way to include all of those other authors.

More boots on the ground, basically.

If your mission is to spread kindness, the more the merrier.

And it's interesting you should say that, Sherry, because I've been doing some research.

I'm now up to over 100 children's book authors I've interviewed for a podcast show.

And what's incredible is as I do research on the children's book market, I found out it's growing quite rapidly.

And one of the reasons is for what you're talking about is because of diversity and inclusion.

It's just bringing so many more people into the children's book authorship journey.

And all you have to do is go and just scroll through our podcast episodes and see the diverse backgrounds and how many things are included.

It's just unbelievable.

So thank you for sharing that.

It's a very important point for any aspiring children's book author to understand that if you've got a story, no matter what it is, there's a market for it.

Because there's lots of us out there that may be part of your tribe and you didn't even know that.

Yes, and I'm still finding out.

More and more authors keep reaching out to me every week that I find that they have a story to share.

And I think it's important to note that a lot of the authors are writing about their own life experience.

They have a child that was bullied or they have a child that's in a wheelchair or a child with a talking device of some kind.

And they want to let people know that this is their passion project and that may only be a one and done book for them.

A very important part of their journey to share that.

Absolutely.

And you know what, Sheri, it's interesting.

Like I said, I've talked to over a hundred children's book authors.

I've yet to talk to anyone that there's a one and done.

Even though they've even said that by the end of our conversation, they've already come up with three or four ideas for another book, for a new one.

Yeah, it's incredible.

And you know what it is from your personal stories because even for ourselves, both our books are based on actual true adventures with my grandchildren and it turned into incredible stories.

And you know what your children, or in my case, my grandchildren, like my granddaughter.

When we wrote our second book, she knew how important it was to include her cousin and her brother in her experience that she was having because she wanted to win a shopping spree.

But she knew she just didn't have enough experience or knowledge on her own and she had to draw upon others.

We started with the end of the story and then worked backwards.

So quite interesting.

I believe that I actually tell a lot of first time authors if they just starting to get their book down, that I started with the beginning of my story, then I added the ending of my story and then I worked out the rest of it between you know where you wanted to start and you know where you want it to end.

Just getting there is the interesting part.

So a lot of authors do that.

I find it important.

I want aspiring children's book authors to learn from this podcast show.

Part of it is the book business.

And so tell us, how did that strategy work out for you when you envisioned or okay, now I'm gonna also get my books into the world.

How has that worked out for you personally?

My books are all included.

I try to include at least one of my books and all of the donation packages that we send out from Ella's Way as well.

And let me explain that a little bit so people know how it worked.

We have about 35 authors on average within Ella's Way and they're from all over the world, many of them in the United States.

I have a new author from Speeden, we have an author in India, we have an author in Canada, which makes her very interesting.

Trying to set up Zoom meeting with all the different times.

So we have about 35 authors under the umbrella of Ellis Way.

They all have their own book business, they sell their books and they do their own events and all of that.

But Ella's Way becomes a website marketing tool for them.

So each of them has their own author's page with on our website with a link to where they sell their books.

It might be Amazon, it might be their own website.

But wherever they sell their books, you can access on our website.

Then what we do through grants and donations and a couple of other programs and we have any money coming in, Ellis Way purchases each one of those author's books.

We may purchase three books, six books, 10 books.

We keep an inventory of all of the author's books.

And then on a regular basis, and it's usually one to two donations a month, maybe more, we take those books and we create donation packages and we send those to various schools, libraries, hospitals, children's clinics, other children's services around the country.

So today we have, I believe we have donated at approximately 200 book donation packages.

And each book donation package has 20 books in it.

So that's a lot of books.

So after we send a donation out, if we need more inventory, we take whatever money we have coming in and turn around, we find more of those authors books.

So we become kind of buying power for them.

And as you know, as an author, you're never really going to get rich being a first time children's book author.

No, but a lot of us didn't have that mission.

Many authors wanted to leave a legacy behind for their children or grandchildren and they want to spread a little kindness in the world or they just, they have their own passion about why they do it.

All of our authors were really thrilled that we could send donation packages of their books to so many schools and libraries.

We donated to both Alaska and Hawaii school systems out there.

And in any other way.

Those authors wouldn't necessarily get their books into those schools unless they are invited to come in and do a reading.

But through Ella's Way as a nonprofit, we can contact them and do a donation package which most schools readily accept.

They're all on limited budgets and they love getting good books into their libraries.

I love that, I love that with the children's book authors.

I'd love to understand a bit more about that purpose.

You talked about kindness.

I think you have a couple of themes that you focus in on.

How do they come to you as a children's book author?

I know they can go to your website, but how do they come to you?

It's mostly through social media.

Find a link on our social media to our website and then many of them, there is some contact information on the website on our social media as well.

But they will just send an email and say, I heard about your organization and I, I'm a children's book author and this is what my book is about.

I think it fits your mission of wanting to introduce children early to acceptance.

And then we'll set up an interview for them and we want to get a preview of their book as well.

And then if everything all stars aligned, they'll come into Ella's Way and become part of our book donation program.

That is fantastic.

It was interesting the incredible thing about it, similar to your story, is when I first started out, of course, it was my oldest granddaughter who ultimately got me to sit down with her and write our story and to actually then create a character.

Once we had the character, she wanted to turn it into a children's book.

And.

But as a children's book author, it can be isolating at times.

So how does Alice Way help build meaningful connections and community for your members?

That's a really good question.

I probably haven't really thought so much about this, but we have authors meetings.

We meet on a quarterly basis, or if we're doing a special project, we'll have a team of authors working together on that project.

Through our meetings, we talk about the different things that Alice Way is doing.

The authors have input as to where we donate our packages to.

They also have input into any other events that each other might want to participate in.

They also share lessons learned along the way with each other.

And then we just started doing guest presentations at our last meeting, so we'll be doing more of that so that they can learn a little bit from each other as well.

So it's a true collaboration.

Okay.

And we call it our Ellis Way Collaborative, so that the authors.

For example, I heard in Connecticut about a special school system that's running some events for teachers, and they're inviting vendors.

So I know we have an author in Connecticut, and we reached out to her and say, if you'd be interested in this event, here's all the contact information.

And we do that for everyone.

And then if the author sees something and they want to share with the group, they'll do the same thing.

So it's a true collaborative.

That's terrific.

The whole thing is that just as you started Alice Way over a year into my book authorship, trying to figure out how am I going to market, how am I going to reach an audience?

I had written a couple of business books.

That's how I knew how to do self publishing.

And from there, I also had started a podcast show, but it wasn't about children's book authorship.

But I liked the podcast end of it.

So I thought, you know what, Maybe that's what I'll do.

And that's how the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors podcast started.

And what it's manifested into actually blows my mind now, because we ended up filling a niche that gives published children's book authors a platform.

And I don't rush anybody, and I ask them questions about their journey and about their children's book.

It just feels good.

And I can see that you feel good about what you did with Alice Way.

I'm really proud of what we've done.

But the one thing I wanted to add that the authors that are within the group are all so different from one another.

So they all bring something different to the table when we meet.

And I've actually seen them grow.

And I'll give you an example.

We have a young author that I helped him publish his first children's book.

He is on the autism spectrum.

He's John Miller.

And his mother and I met and we decided to help him publish his book.

And he wrote the story and he illustrated the story.

And it's from the mind of an autistic young man.

And he was very shy, very introverted.

When you asked him a question, his mother often answered for him.

If this is going to work, we really need to have him promote himself and feel more comfortable and proud of what he's doing.

And eventually now he comes on the the authors group meetings, he talks with everyone in the group, but he's also gone out now and set up his own business where he goes to school, he does public engagements.

And because he became so confident over the years with his book and talking with everyone about it and meeting with our other authors, it's been just incredible to watch him grow.

And we have several other authors either they had never done an event before and they were really nervous about it.

And so they did their first time event with the support of the other authors, telling them how to set up their table and how to have some literature there about their book and how to display their books on the table.

So it's been really wonderful to watch them not only support each other, but to grow through the process.

That's fantastic.

It's interesting too, because you never know the impact that you're having.

And I found, even for myself, when I started the podcast show, I really didn't know, okay, what's the impact here?

I was trying to help children's book authors reach a bigger reading audience.

And I was also trying to help aspiring children's book authors get started.

And the biggest compliment I ever got was about episode 30.

I got.

Someone reached out to me through messenger and they said to me, hi, I'm aspiring children's book author and I've listened to every one of your podcast shows and I'm thinking, wow, even 30, that was a lot.

And she Said, your guests have inspired me to finally finish and publish my children's book.

And she said, when I actually publish my children's book, can I come on your podcast show?

And I said, absolutely.

She published her children's book.

It's episode 57.

It's Shannon Tursky.

And that's the biggest feeling of satisfaction that I could ever ask for, knowing that you can make that difference.

You cite another example of how your organization motivated someone.

You didn't even think that you were motivating.

Yeah, as a matter of fact, through word of mouth.

And a lot of this came when I started doing special events.

There are a lot of teachers, kindergarten teacher, preschool teachers, or people that are going to art school or just have that kind of creative mind that have come up to my table that I've had at those special events and say, hey, I would love to write a children's book, but I don't know how to get started.

So I actually started meeting with some of those authors, first time authors, via Zoom, and started talking with them.

Tell me a little bit more about your project.

And then we would go to go over the next steps.

And that helped them to put the structure into place.

Because when you think about writing and publishing a children's books, it's very overwhelming.

So putting all of those steps into place is what you do first, this is what you do second.

This is, is about what the cost is going to be.

These are some examples of printers down the road.

When you're ready to put those pieces into place is very fulfilling for me.

But I did meet a young woman who was writing a story about her niece who used us a speaking device, and she was really motivated to write about her.

I met with her, connected her with an illustrator.

She put all of the pieces together and eventually came back to me about a year later and said, hey, I finished my children's book.

And I said, this is a great book.

Let's bring you into Ella's way.

So we started from the ground up and now her book is called Ellie the Elephant and Tate the Talker.

And it's about using a speaking device and it's just perfect for our organization.

And just to watch her from the ground up, just get all those ideas into one place and get it finally into print and then becoming an author with us.

Fantastic.

And I want to pick up on that because aspiring book authors might feel intimidated about joining professional organizations as they might have that imposter syndrome.

I can tell you a little story about that.

And what would you say to Someone who's hesitant about reaching out and getting involved.

I was taught this again by the gentleman that I explained he was blind.

The best advice I ever got was to be fearless.

If you need to learn a new skill like Photoshop or Canva or any of those, learn it.

There's all kinds of YouTube support for doing that.

There's all kinds of manuals out there.

You can do that.

There's also a lot of information online about writing a children's book.

So just be fearless, do your research, and get the courage up to say, I can do this.

Other people have done this.

I'm creative.

I have a great story in mind.

I can do this.

I just need to know the steps along.

Along the way.

Afraid of learning something new.

Terrific.

It's interesting you should say that, because one of my first guests, Tanyaki, wrote a book called Money Time, and it was a children's book.

And even though it's called Money Time, it was more about the principle of time management for children, and it was good for adults also.

And when I interviewed her, she had a social media site.

She didn't have a website.

And so I went to her Instagram and Facebook and I noticed she hadn't put children's book author in any of her description.

I asked her that as a question, and she again, imposter syndrome, went, whoa.

And so you know what?

Within five minutes of us completing the podcast episode, she sent me a message and said, rick, go to my social media sites now because I'm a children's book author.

And she put that right on there.

And I had the great pleasure not that long ago of interviewing her again because she launched her second book and it was just incredible.

And she.

Yeah, she built her own website.

Since the first time I interviewed her, that.

So that was incredible.

And I.

You talked about this gentleman that.

That is blind and had a lot of influence on you.

It's interesting the things that you learn.

Sherry is incredible.

I interviewed a children's book author.

His name is Richard Riemann, and he's called the Audiobook wizard, and he dresses up like a wizard.

He's written two children's books.

But the remarkable thing about him is he lives in Colorado and he teaches blind children how to ski.

And.

Wow.

Yeah, incredible.

So he told me that while he was teaching them lessons, they found out he did audiobooks.

But they said, oh, but there's nothing for us.

And he said, what do you mean?

He said, an audiobook.

We don't quite understand it because it's just the words from A children's book.

And he thought.

And he started this business where he does enhance descriptive audiobooks.

And so him and I kicked it off and he said, rick, I think that hijinks from the Big Head Folk Music Festival would make a beautiful enhanced descriptive audiobook.

So we're about a week away from it actually going live.

Amazon has a separate organization called ACX for audiobooks and enhanced audiobooks.

So it's incredible what happens.

And I would have never in all of my life thought to take my books and make them into an enhanced descriptive audiobook.

But his main character in his books is blind.

Wow.

And she's a princess.

Yeah.

So it's just, it is, it's just incredible what can happen.

The networking we talked about.

Do you help because you talked about the young gal and, and she wrote this book and then got illustrations done.

Do you help your author groups find professionals like editing, book formatting illustrators?

Do you help them in that journey also?

I do, as a matter of fact.

It just happened last week.

Someone had written a story and she wasn't sure where to go.

She was an artist as well, so she was doing her own illustrations.

So we talked and I basically helped her with the formatting of her illustrations.

But she didn't know the next steps after that.

And as far as the editing and then the actual publishing and printing process.

So through Ella's Way and our social media, I've been connected with a couple of publishing companies and one of our authors actually has her own book editing company as well.

So I can refer them directly to an editor.

And then I do have two publishing companies and a printing and a printer that I can refer people to.

And we're all on a first name basis so we can make those connections right out there.

And the other way is, you may not be aware, but we.

Last year we kicked off an awards and Ellsway awards program.

Children's book authors.

And I did have two different publishing companies that saw our ad and sent us a couple of authors.

So now I know those publishing companies and their authors are now also within Ellis Way.

It did so well in the awards program and we love their books.

So we're running our awards program right now.

It's on our Ellis Way website for applications and we have multiple winners.

The categories, it's all one category of kindness.

So we're looking for books with social, emotional learning and diversity awareness.

So anyone that writes a book like that, they can have a judging team take a look at their book and it's bragging rights.

If you win an award for your books and there's a lot of very expensive award programs out there.

We keep ours very a nominal fee so that first time authors feel like they can really get some mileage out of it.

So we opened it in June.

It'll run through August 1st.

Expand on that a bit more.

Explain how someone would go to your website and how they actually submit their book for an award.

Sure.

If they go on that tab, it will explain the entry criteria, what kind of books that we're looking for.

But in general, they fit our mission of diversity awareness, disability awareness, kindness, inclusion and social emotional learning.

And it's all spelled out right there.

They can fill out an application to introduce their book to us.

And then we ask them to send us a PDF and a physical copy of their book.

The PDF goes out to all of the different judges.

We have a really lovely.

We have about.

I think there's 13 or 14 judges on our team right now.

And the fee this year is $40, which actually is quite a bit lower.

We've seen some other ones for 150, 200, up to $500 to enter your book.

And that's pretty intimidating for first time.

Authors, no doubt about it.

So we get their books in their PDFs, they go through the judging process and then we announce all of the winners on October 15 once everything has been read and judged.

And then we post all of their books on our website on that same tab.

They can also see last year's winners as well.

We had about 140 entries last year, so we were excited about that for our first year and entries are coming in right now, so we're excited about that.

And then we do social media posts for them afterward.

They get a certificate of excellence lens physical as well as digital.

They get a physical gold seal for their books and they get physical gold seals as well as a digital gold seal for their books as well, saying that they're an award winner.

Beautiful.

And then we have an honorable mention category as well.

So there's a lot of awards given out last year.

Well, we're excited about.

We publish our podcast show every Tuesday.

Our podcast guests today, Jacqueline Boylan.

She wrote a really neat book.

I sent her a message and I said, go to your website.

I think you should submit your book to Ellis.

Oh, great.

Yeah.

So just hopefully she does.

She's a first time children's book author.

And so.

Yeah.

And so now I want to come back for a moment and talk about.

Generally I talk about four different types of publishing.

There's the traditional publishing, where you go find a publisher.

There's the independent publishing route where you actually work with a small children's book publisher or a small publisher who isn't part of the big five.

Then there's the hybrid publishing, which generally you pay someone to do all the work and bring your book to market, but you keep all the rights.

But it can be very expensive to go the hybrid way.

And then there's self publishing, which is what we've done.

We created our own publishing company.

Ours is called Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear Publishing Den.

And so we published our first two books.

There's four different ways directionally.

What do you do with people when they come to you and they say, sherry, you know what, it's confusing.

There's so many ways to publish.

What should I do?

And exactly we.

And it's a very overwhelming process.

So we sit down first and just talk about the book and what their goals are coming out of it.

And many of them have actually submitted their books to Penguin Books and Random House and all of those big publishing companies only to find out that they don't have an agent.

They're not going to for the most part get picked up by those.

So they have to go to some type of other self publishing route.

Yes.

So we talk about do they want to illustrate their own books, if they have the skill set to do that.

If they don't, then they need to be connected with either an illustrator or a small publishing house that has illustrators on hand to help them.

Usually once I find out what their goals are and what their timeline is and what their budget is as well, then I will send them over to one of our smaller publishing company.

I like working with the smaller ones because there's more hand holding involved, especially for a first time author.

It's a little overwhelming process.

So we send them over to there and they either get some consultation how to do their own illustrations and sizing or they get connected with an illustrator and then that publisher will do the editing as well for them.

Just need some editing done.

I'll send them just to an editor that I know to help with that process.

Okay, talk to us about your publishing journey.

How have you handled your books?

I took that beat fearless, learned something new and I completely did the whole publishing process myself.

Okay, so you're self published.

So Elsway is technically a publishing company underneath the nonprofit profit articles that you need to apply for.

So we are technically a publishing company and we did start out by self publishing all five of my books and I will continue to do that.

But I did everything.

I did the writing and I worked with a wonderful illustrator and she helped with the editing and the illustration and the formatting process, put it all together.

I formatted everything and taught myself Photoshop and then went to a printer from there and just sent it to a printer.

So I just completely avoided the whole publisher route, as it sounds like you did as well.

There are a lot of skill sets that you have to learn and develop by doing that.

You know what I always tell people?

That you can't be the jack of all trades and the master of none.

I always suggest to people, first of all, don't be afraid.

Because a lot of people have, they have this vision because they go onto these websites and they, for $10,000 will bring your children's book to life.

And they go, $10,000.

And I always say to people, you know what, look up the definition of general manager or project manager.

When it comes to a children's book, there's only six or seven steps that you really have to manage.

And so if you're not an illustrator, find an illustrator.

But what I also tell people is one of the most important functions is editing.

Editors generally charge you by the word.

I can tell you what the least expensive thing you're going to do.

But the most impactful thing is get your book edited because it's so valuable, but it's not expensive.

And so I just try and dispel any of this myth around.

You gotta put 10,000 bucks into it to be a great children's book.

That's not true at all.

And, and self publishing, if you're willing.

You said be fearless.

I say if you're not afraid to roll up your sleeves.

Maybe I like your fearless better.

I totally agree with the editing process.

The illustrator that I worked with had actually published 30 of her own books.

Wow.

So she was very.

She was a wonderful illustrator.

Her name is Nancy Cote.

C O T E. And as an illustrator for Highlights magazine.

And I had just advertised online for an illustrator.

It was a free site and I just advertised and she saw it and contacted me.

And when I saw her work, I really said, you want to work with me?

I'm a first time.

Like, are you sure?

She said that she had a daughter that she had adopted from Africa and She loved the mission of the book, what the message of the book, and said, I absolutely want to work with you.

So I was lucky in that she helped with the editing process as well as the illustration and formatting process.

So she helped me with my first two books, and she continues to amaze me with all of her work.

She's a wonderful illustrator.

Wow.

I talk about website development, and it's like the chicken and the egg.

Do you have your website first or do you have your book first?

There's always different ways to go about it.

Now, obviously, your website's developed over the years.

I want to take you on a little bit of a journey.

When you first started with your website, was it primarily to just promote your book?

Yes.

And the mission?

So that if I was going to go into a school and do a book reading, that I could refer people to the website and it told them more about Ella's Way and what we're trying to accomplish.

So it started out with, really to help with some promotion for my first book, and then the second one came, and so I could refer teachers to it, school principals, superintendents.

They could see what the.

What it was all about.

Okay.

So that's how it started.

And then it evolved.

And I noticed your organization's dedicated to sensitive topics such as diversity, equity acceptance, inclusion in a friendly and approachable way.

And those are lofty words, but that's what children's books today are starting to reflect, as I had mentioned earlier about some of the studies I've been doing on the children's book marketplace.

And so your organization was ahead of its time and is truly a reflection, really, of what's going on in the children's marketplace.

So I definitely would encourage people to look at your website to understand that your organization's right in tune with what's going on in the children's book world.

Thank you.

You're welcome to hear.

And so how are you using social media to promote Ella's Way and your authors?

We have a Facebook account for Ellis Way, so you just have to go to their search bar and type in Ellis Way.

You'll see our Facebook page.

And then it's Ella's Way, Inc. For Instagram.

Those are our two social media accounts.

Okay.

And what we do is regularly we promote a lot of different topics.

We see some wonderful memes or photos out there that are just beautiful and support our mission.

We'll put those on social media as kind of fillers, but for the most part, we try to take our authors and give them some promotion.

On our social media as well.

It might be one month, just a picture of their books.

The next month might be them doing a school reading with pictures of that or a special event.

So we'll try.

If they have an event coming up, we'll try to put that on our social media for them so that we can target viewers in their particular area to go see them at their event.

And we have a newsletter as well.

You can see sign up for that on our website.

Yeah, I just actually got my May newsletter.

Sweet.

Oh, good.

You do?

I do.

We have a newsletter as well coming up for June soon.

That's.

It'll happen.

We do try to highlight any new authors that come in.

We'll put them in there or any other.

Or any special projects that we're working on just really quickly.

We finished a beautiful project not too long ago.

It's called the Kindness Corner.

Okay.

And it's a mobile, small little library car.

Teacher can put it on a library, can put it on a cart on wheels.

It's the Kindness corner of a selection of our books, 20 books, as well as any other books that they want to have.

And it can travel from classroom to classroom.

And then the classroom can have a special kindness presentation that day and would have some activities for the kids, coloring pages, bookmarks about kindness.

And we have an activity guide that the teacher can use to walk them through some different other kindness arts and crafts or different activities.

That is terrific.

So we just donated one to a school here in Massachusetts that'll be using it.

So we're excited.

We have a few in different schools right now, but we'd love to see more.

But it's a beautiful little library.

I'm curious about your authors.

What do they gain emotionally and creatively?

You talked about those corporations, quarterly zoom meetings.

So they're surrounding themselves with other children's book creators.

What do you think they're gaining?

You're probably facilitating it.

And then you're hearing the conversations and seeing people's faces.

What does that feel like and what's it look like?

I love it.

I absolutely love it.

And I love talking with the authors.

They usually take away something new that they learned from those meetings.

So not only do they have the support from the other authors, but they can ask questions.

So, for example, one of the authors might say, gee, I've never done a school reading before.

How do I even start that?

What do I do?

Or I'd like to do one virtually.

How do I actually do that?

So all of us, the rest of the group, majority of them have had that experience.

So they'll share it with the other author, what worked for them, what didn't work.

So hopefully it saves some of their time by not finding that something didn't work.

They'll try something that worked maybe first, so they're saving some time and making some good connections that way.

And then just the support and the love.

We talk about each other's new projects and any assistance that they might need or they might know of another author that they want to support and bring into the group.

So it's really kind of a sharing and caring time and maybe take away some pieces of new information that they didn't know before.

That's terrific.

What advice would you give an author who's trying to decide whether to join a professional community like yours?

Is it worth it?

I think five or six of the other authors I have are with me.

So I think that's maybe a good question for those folks as well.

But I think you have to be careful about joining different groups so that you don't get discouraged, particularly on social media.

There's a lot of authors groups on social media that I've joined more recently looking for some new authors for our awards program and such that might be interested.

Authors can be mean to one another.

They really can be.

And especially if your book is.

If they don't like your illustrations or they're partial to.

They don't like AI, they'd rather see watercolor illustrations or something.

They can be feel very safe behind their screen criticizing each other.

And I think as a new author, that would be really discouraging for me.

So I really tell them, if you join a group and all of a sudden you start seeing negative feedback on a pretty regular basis, get out of that group.

You just, you don't need that.

You don't need that in any part of your life whatsoever.

People need to be lifted up and especially somebody who's doing something for them first time.

You don't just want to discourage them because they may have the most beautiful book in mind and then they get discouraged and they put it on the back burner.

And I any group like that, people to walk away from that.

I couldn't agree with you more.

That's fantastic advice.

Success.

I want to talk to you a little bit about success and because when I generally talk to my guests were talking about their children's book business and I talk about, okay, what did you envision success just before you published your book and what did it actually look like after you launched your book?

So in your case, we're talking about your organization, Ellis Way.

When you started visioning this organization of helping other children's book authors, what did you originally envisioned and what is, what does it look like now?

What's the success turned into for you?

It's hard to put the label success on it because a lot of people equate success with book sales and money coming in and all of that.

I don't.

I consider success with just a feeling and pride in what we're doing and having people reach out to us and say, wow, I love what you're doing, or get a message on our website that says, wow, keep it up.

It's just so important what you're doing.

That to me is the success overall.

But I didn't envision that at the beginning.

I thought, okay, I'll pull in a few authors.

Maybe together we can start doing some virtual readings because it was during the pandemic and maybe we could do that.

But starting to talk with them, I said, wow, I have the ability as a nonprofit organization to actually buy some books from these authors and support them that way and do some social media for them and put them on the website.

So it evolved into more and more.

And then through the book awards program, we even found more authors with beautiful books coming in.

So for me, it was just about helping people, showing people first time authors that they have something that they can really be proud of and then watching them grow through their author's journey from just writing their first book and getting through that process, but then taking the next steps and doing their first event, doing their going to their first school, participating on a podcast to develop that sense of confidence in what they did and to hear that they're actually doing those things.

When I may have met them right after their book was published and all of a sudden now they've got three or four events in a podcast book for the next month.

Incredible.

Their success is Elle's basic.

I usually ask this about advice for aspiring children's book authors and I want to ask you that question, but I also want to talk to you about with your organization.

You said you have about 35 members currently.

Talk to us about, do they have to be a published children's book author to become a member of your group?

Yes, yes.

We have to be able to read their book and make sure that it aligns with our mission.

And it doesn't matter where they, where they come from.

They could be another country or such, but we have to be able to read the book and make sure.

It aligns, because that's part of the program, is that they go into our book donation program.

So we actually have to have the physical book and be able to purchase them.

Absolutely.

Advice to this question, just because we get a lot of aspiring children's book authors listening to our show, is what advice would you give them prior to joining your organization?

Because they don't have a published book and they would love to bring a children's book to life.

What advice would you give aspiring children's book authors?

As you had said earlier, familiarize yourself with all of the steps in the publishing process and don't rush that process, even the editing process.

Give it time.

Give your illustrations time.

Make sure that you are just really proud of what you've written and then how the book actually comes to life with the illustrations.

And then get your book to print from there, but not to rush the process.

And do as much research as you possibly can.

And this might include going to your local children's library and look at the different book sizes and look at the different orientation.

Do you want the book to be taller or wider?

Do you want it to be glossy?

Do you want it to be hardcover?

What speaks to your heart when you actually have some of those books in your hand?

And then once you have your story actually written, you'll know what the illustrations should look like and then get yourself a good illustrator.

Be very careful in that process.

There are a lot of scammers, I hate to say on social media, to have to be very careful and do your due diligence as far as hiring anyone to do that.

Connect your reputable publishing company and let them introduce you to a reputable illustrator as well.

Well, just be really careful.

I have seen a lot of scammers.

Out there, advantages for readers.

If we didn't have children's book readers, you wouldn't have an organization and I wouldn't have a podcast show, so.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So why should children's book readers support Alice Way and your authors?

We consider our books to be niche children's books because they have a specific theme in them that are related to our mission.

So our books are not just for children.

They're actually for an educator, parent, grandparent, as a way to actually have a conversation with the child about whatever topic is in that book.

So we use those books.

If you think about it back in the day, there are still to this day people using potty training books, which actually is more for the parent than it is for the child, and communicate using the potty.

So our Books are wonderful.

Creating different conversations about social, emotional, learning.

And then ask the child questions.

Have you ever seen a child in your school like this before?

Do they have friends?

What could you do to be their friend?

How could you be nice to someone on the playground?

What does it mean to be kind?

So you can use that book as a very gentle teaching tool as a parent or an educator to talk about that topic that's in that book.

If it's a topic about a child that has autism, you can ask, have you ever seen a child like this in your school?

Are they fun?

What can they do?

What can they do just like you?

So many of my children's book author guests have told me that a lot of times after they do a reading where there's adults in the room, adults will rush up to them and say, that's me.

Your character is me.

And it takes them back to their childhood.

Yes, yes.

I did a reading at a Rotary Club and we actually had a talk in the room where just about all of the Rotarians at one point in their life had either been the victim of bullying in their early years or had witnessed it happening.

So it really resonates when you mentioned about the reading.

I've actually had children come up to me after the reading and tell me about something that happened in their home that where they were hurt in some way.

They felt safe to be able to say that because we opened the door having that conversation.

They came up to me afterward, a small little girl, and told me, and I was able to communicate that to the teacher.

It really does resonate with both children and adults as well.

The topics are just so important right now.

Final thoughts here.

Sheri, as we wrap up, is there something that I haven't asked you about your organization that people should know about, or if you want to use this time to share again your website and how new authors can get involved with your organization, Feel free to talk about that.

The one thing about Ellis Way being a nonprofit is that for all of our money coming in, we turn around and send it back out to buy books from the authors for our inventory.

And I always tell the authors that we have to limit money coming in to money going out.

We need to make sure that we had that money coming in.

And grants are getting harder and harder these days to try to find.

So we do have another program.

We call it Restaurants for Respect.

And these are restaurants that have agreed to put something on the menu that.

And they donate the profit from that particular menu item back to Ellis Way or they allow maybe a 10% fundraising night.

And then that 10% of the profits will be sent over to Ellis Way.

So we have more restaurants jumping on board.

And then we use.

And the authors have actually coordinated some of those restaurant programs as well.

Catherine Clark Felt told me about it.

She was so excited about that.

She did.

And we had one in Texas not too long ago.

We've got one coming up in Massachusetts in October.

So we have four restaurants on board right now, maybe five.

That's what coming that are giving us on a monthly basis, giving us money from their food sales to Ellis Way.

And then we just try to do other fundraising events as well.

We've done fundraisers with schools where we'll set up a virtual library online.

And then the parents can pick out the book that they want for their child.

And then for every book sold, we'll send $3 back to the school to use however they want so that allow us to make sales, get books into the hands of parents, and give the school a little bit someone.

So it's our Win, Win, Win program that is.

Wow.

So we're always looking for opportunities where we can bring in a little bit more, like through our awards program and then turn around and support our authors by buying their books and then support children's programs by donating books back out again.

So it's a full circle company.

Wow.

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

Your generosity of time, your insights will significantly benefit aspiring authors and readers.

We promise to provide our audience with links to Sherry's website, her social media, and her books.

And if you've enjoyed this episode, please hit the subscribe button to listen to our future episodes and feel free to share this episode with anyone inspired by Sherry's message and her organization, Ella's Way.

Thank you, Sherry.

Thank you for having me.

And just a reminder to everyone out there, try to do something kind today.

Appreciate it.

Terrific.