Katie Kuperman, an accomplished children's book author, joins us to delve into her captivating series, which includes titles such as "Muddy Spokes," "Speedy Spokes," and "Spokes Blows a Tire."

Throughout our dialogue, Katie articulates her passion for connecting with young audiences and the significance of imparting core values such as resilience and emotional management through her narratives.

She shares the inspiration behind her books, drawing from personal experiences with her children and the lessons she wishes to impart. Additionally, we explore the intricate process of becoming a children's book author, including the challenges and triumphs she has encountered along her journey.

As we engage in this enlightening conversation, we invite you to discover the enriching themes woven into Katie's work and the insights she offers to aspiring authors.

The podcast episode offers an in-depth exploration of Katie's creative process and the inspiration behind her beloved characters in the Spokes series.

Katie delves into the genesis of her books, revealing that her journey began with a desire to communicate vital life lessons to children, which stemmed from her experiences as a parent.

She articulates the significance of being a children's book author, emphasizing the unique connection she forges with her young audience. The discussion further highlights how Katie's background in professional writing and marketing has shaped her approach to storytelling, enabling her to craft narratives that are both entertaining and educational.

Each book in her series conveys a distinct message, from resilience and resourcefulness to emotional intelligence, encouraging children to reflect on their experiences and grow from them.

Katie's passion for inspiring the next generation through literature shines through in her thoughtful reflections and engaging anecdotes.

Takeaways:

• The journey of becoming a children's book author is deeply connected to personal experiences and the desire to impart valuable lessons to children.
• Katie Kuperman's books focus on themes of resilience, resourcefulness, and emotional management, aiming to empower children as they navigate life's challenges.
• The integration of humorous and relatable characters, such as Spokes and Roly Poly, enhances the storytelling experience and engages young readers effectively.
• Utilizing modern marketing tools, such as QR codes, allows authors to connect with readers and provide additional resources that enrich the reading experience.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• https://katiekuperman.com
• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Muddy Spokes
• Speedy Spokes
• Spokes Blows a Tire

Katie Cooperman, Muddy Spokes, Speedy Spokes and Spokes Blows a Tire Thanks, Katie.

Brings a smile to my face when I hear your titles of your book.

I'm looking forward to having Katie appear on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors podcast.

Katie has mentioned she's written several children's books and today we're going to focus on her book.

Spokesman Blows a Tire and I look forward to our conversation.

Katie, before we get into the details of your book, can you tell us what being a children's book author means to you?

That's a great opening question.

Being a children's book author really makes me feel connected to the younger audience that's out there.

Ever since I became a parent, I realized how much I really do love kids.

And I'm always the adult at the party that slips away for a few minutes and goes to hang out with the kids and see what they're up to.

After seeing my own children, I don't wanna say battle through certain things, but more so thinking about what lessons would I love to impart on them or what would I love to teach them as a parent?

And then even further than that, what should every kid need to know in order to live their best life?

And so that's how I try to base my books around some core message like that.

And I'll be honest, the first one is more of an overarching theme that I think is so important for kids to know, and that is the whole theme around resilience and resourcefulness.

So that is Muddy Spokes.

And then Speedy Spokes came out of watching and observing my son.

That book is inspired by him and how his mind is one of the fastest minds I've ever met in my life.

And if you don't know him, you'll think he's not listening or he's spaced out somewhere.

But he's never just spaced out.

His mind is spinning fast, always.

And so I thought, I'm going to use that to show kids that's actually a great thing.

But how can we then and know how to control it?

So we're really using this powerful tool of ours to the greatest capacity.

And then the third book is inspired by my daughter and this whole idea of we've got to learn how to manage our emotions so that we don't go from zero to 100 that fast.

We've gotta be able to control ourselves so that we feel more empowered as kids, as people, as adults.

Being a children's book author to me feels like an honor because I am able to try my best to bring a cool, funny story to life, but also to leave them with something so that they think, huh, if I'm ever in a situation like this, maybe, just maybe, if I could be so honored, maybe they could think back to that book and say, hey, Spokes had some tools that I could use.

And to me, what greater honor than to be in a little kid's head for five seconds or to make them laugh or to make them remember something that they could use in their life to feel better.

Thank you for sharing the background on all three of your books.

I would like you to think back to the original inspiration behind the book, because I know you talked about your second book and your son, your third book, and your daughter.

So take us back to the what just inspired you to think, oh, I'm going to become a children's book author?

What was the inspiration?

I come from almost two decades now of professional writing.

In my business.

I have written all kinds of marketing materials for clients.

I've helped people with websites and blog posts.

And then lots more personal stories started coming to life.

I started ghost writing people's books for them and helping them bring important stories to life.

Never children's book.

And then it was through that process that I thought, I'm ready and really driven now to bring my own story to life.

But I had no idea what to write about and it took me a long time to get there.

And then I felt really inspired by this teenager out in British Columbia, Canada, and something tragic happened.

I won't go there right now.

And that is what inspired me to write my very first book, which is actually a young adult novel about bullying and mental health.

And then from there I got a lot of attention with that book through schools because it started to be used as a teaching tool.

And then I thought, you know what?

I want to create a workbook now that's going to go with that book like a package.

That became the second book.

And then it was after that someone in my life said to me, I don't understand why you haven't written a children's book yet.

I feel like you'd be great at that.

That kind of planted the seed.

But I was still very much in the anti bullying space.

And I, I wrote, you won't believe where the inspiration came for that book because I wrote a blog post on my website about bullying and it used the analogy of a wheel, and it said, the center hub is you, and the spokes are all the different parts of your life that fan out.

And then the wheel is your world.

And.

And the mud is the bad stuff.

The mud is the stuff that gets us to feel all muddied up and we're not good enough.

And now we're sticky and we're wet and we're muddy, and how do we keep going through all of this mess?

So that was the blog post that was honestly online and live for at least a year or two before anything dawned on me.

But I always said to myself, if I'm going to write a children's book, I wanted to have a unique character.

And I didn't want it to be an animal, and I didn't want it to be just another kid with a random name.

I wanted it to be something totally different.

And something made me think back to this blog post, and I said, wait a second, I wrote something about a wheel.

I gotta go back to that.

And that's where it all started.

That's where Spokes was born.

And I thought, this is my character.

And in each of my books, I still use this analogy.

So kids can visualize.

Picture your life as a bicycle wheel.

And how does that fit into this particular story, Whether it's Money, Spokes, Speedy, or Spokes, or whatever else is going to come next.

And that's how it all started.

And I love it because I have two of your books, and I love how you can bring a wheel to life and we'll get more into that.

So thank you for sharing that.

The other thing I like doing, Katie, is talking about your book business, because once you create a children's book, I think a lot of people don't realize they've just created a product.

And with a product, sometimes it's just to satisfy an inner desire and a passion.

And you're happy to sell one or two copies to your friends and family, and you've got that in your system.

But 99% of every single children's book author I've talked to has always either written multiple books or they're about to write their next book.

When I hear that, I realize, oh, like, they're thinking of it more as a business, but what does that business look like?

And you're a great person to talk to because you're multifaceted.

If anybody goes to your website, they'll see how multifaceted you are.

But I'm curious.

I know you've written several books on Mental health, bullying, pet grief.

But besides that, I noticed you're also the illustrator.

So again, I'm looking at this and thinking, wow, Katie, now you've got all of these tools in your tool belt.

Tell us, how are you building your children's book business from all of these tools that you have?

Talk to us about that.

Really great question, and I think it's really important to talk about, just as you mentioned, because I think as a new author, we tend to think, oh, I just need to write the book and get it out there.

And that is only one small piece of the big giant business and the big giant battle, if you want to put it that way.

I'm an indie author, and with that comes a lot of control, and it comes higher royalties and all that fun stuff.

But it also comes with a lot of pressure on ourselves because we are the marketing engine.

It's us.

It's not some monster traditional publishing house behind us that's gonna dump tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars into us and sell this thing and blow it up worldwide.

We have it all on us.

And I will be honest.

And where I find that I struggle the most is that I have learned, especially in the last six months to one year, talking to all kinds of different people.

I'm an idea person.

The ideas don't stop.

And a lot of them, I think are great.

But number one, I don't have time to implement them all.

Number two, the constant thing that I struggle with is where to put my time next and what should I do right now?

And I've done a lot of things to try to build this children's book business.

So I've gone into schools and I've done readings in there, and that has led to book sales.

And I've had lots of great feedback directly from kids, which is the best.

I love doing that kind of stuff.

And the more authors.

Can I just.

I want to understand a lot of published children's book authors that I have on the show, they also have done school readings.

I'm curious because you said from that you were able to garner sales.

Because a lot of times when I talk to some of the children's book authors that I've had on the show, they don't get any sales or they get few sales.

It's having a system in place.

What system have you gone in place when you do your school visits or you do your book reading so that we can Share a little insight as people build out their business.

One thing I think that really helps and that worked for me.

And again, this didn't one school visit with I think it was three classes, maybe about 50 kids in this one particular one that I'm thinking of that didn't amount to an obscene amount of sales, don't get me wrong.

But definitely some.

And I think the key is really doing your best when you have that opportunity in front of the kids to get on their level, get right in close with them and laugh with them and share story with them and then talk to them after.

And I had a bunch of them come up to me afterwards and just say, oh, I really love that book.

And I gave out cards so this is the next important piece of the puzzle.

So I gave out cards to each kid and the teachers actually helped me do this as well that they could bring home to their parents.

And the sale is coming from the kid in this case, not the parent, which it's often the other way around with children's books.

Right.

You're almost selling to the parent because the parent says ooh, I like this message for my kids or ooh, this is a great story.

They're going to relate to this and

they're the gatekeeper of the money.

Precisely.

In this case I had to get those cards in the kids hands and hope that I made enough of a good impression that that the kid goes home and says mom, this author came to school today, I love her book, can we please get it?

Here's the card.

And then quick QR code parent takes it from there.

But it has to be driven from the kid.

So I do find that wherever I go I always like to have a giveaway and it's just small.

It's literally.

I don't really like the small business cards anymore.

A little bigger to make more of a statement.

But you have to have something to put in people's hands.

I know it sounds old school, but it's still really important because I think that drives the action that later because they're going to leave and then they might forget or it slips their mind.

But if you've got a little reminder that helps a lot.

Then of course getting on the side of the teachers and at the administration if you can, and they might say, okay, we're going to send out an email saying that you're coming with links to your books or after the fact, we're going to remind people where they can get your books after the reading.

That's also helpful too.

When you look at your overall children's book business, how much revenue would you say directly or indirectly comes from school visits and public readings and break your book business down a bit more on how your different sources of revenue.

I just feel in this day and age, it's so much more efficient if we can do stuff online, obviously.

But I'm still trying to figure out whether that's really all that effective in some cases.

And I think it just depends.

So I really try to do a mix.

Okay.

And it depends on the time of year.

So I find that sometimes I piggyback a few school visits or in person events.

So I just had a book signing at Barnes and Noble that related to a few sales.

Plus I got a book coaching client just by being in Barnes and Noble that day, which is very profitable.

I think it depends on the time, it depends on the place, it depends on what did you do in that moment, who walked through the door?

Obviously there's so many ifs, but I like to do a mix.

And my biggest goal, I think would be more so I still want to do all the in person things.

I think they're really important.

And then mixing that up with a few more detailed videos, not just short social media videos, but detailed, longer readings and explaining concepts and things like that.

Almost using the content from my books to put up more educational videos on YouTube because I think that could be a very good play.

People go to YouTube, then they're gonna go to the site, okay, I like this.

And hopefully buy the books.

We'll see.

But it's hard for me to break down that percentage.

I feel like it's different at different times of year to answer your question

and to pick up what you said.

And I'm seeing this more and more because I talked to Dina Morris, episode 83, a published children's book author out of New, and she wrote a book, but she also created a curriculum to go with the book.

And that allowed her to create more revenue.

And after talking to her, I really believe that could be the biggest part of her revenue is the curriculum.

And the sales of the books would be almost like an add on.

And so when I listen to how you're talking and also knowing that you have a coaching background and that it's funny whether it's yourself as, as an indie children's book author or myself, we all get the question, how do I go about becoming a published children's book author?

And you've obviously taken advantage of that and are coaching people on how to do that.

And then that in itself could lead to multiple sales.

As you either coach a single individual or someone invites you to coach a group.

Talk to us a little bit about how you ended up in the coaching realm.

Sure.

And before I do that, I actually have one quick question, because this constantly is on my mind when I think about supplementary material to go along with a book such as a curriculum.

Does that other author have a teaching background or a teaching degree?

And that's what enabled them to see that's key.

I don't have that.

That's a great question.

Because what I'm finding is about 75% of the children's book authors that I talk to so far have either come from a teaching background, whether they're still active or retired, or they come from an early childhood development background.

They're getting involved with kids prior to them, even starting in school.

What's interesting, they all have some sort of teaching background.

But I'm finding now that people are realizing if they're going to build out their business, they need to find a way to do that.

And if you're a teacher, one of the skills that you generally have is how to develop a curriculum.

Because then a lot of them are now going to educational school boards with their curriculum because they speak the language.

In your case, you're talking to individuals who are looking for someone to coach them, and that's a skill that you have.

That's why I was curious from the coaching standpoint, because not all of us have a teaching background.

Coaching side of things is interesting.

For me, I was strictly in the writing space, whether it be my own books or for my clients through my business.

Only very recently, within the past six to eight months, did I really start to consider this coaching avenue and start to go more that route.

I was getting a lot of people reaching out, asking questions.

And I was noticing even some of my larger clients that are doing books that I would normally just ghost write on their behalf, they started wanting to do more of it themselves, which I actually think is a beautiful thing.

And these days, with all of the tools that we have at our disposal, and I'm not talking about letting AI write your whole book for you, that's not what I mean.

But you can still use that as a tool to get over your writer's block, to help you with that one sentence that you're stuck on that you know is awful, but you don't know how to fix it.

And instead of spending the next 45 minutes trying to fix that one sentence, you have a tool that can help you and it's still a very ethical way to use it.

So I started coaching people naturally through my business on their books.

And then I realized how much I love that.

And because I have 17 years of experience not only helping people bring stories to life, but also coaching them through.

Because sometimes the ghost writing process, especially if you're producing any book, you would be surprised what you're going to go through.

And even mentally you're going to go through imposter syndrome.

I don't care who you are, even if you are someone who's done this a million times, and I'm sure you can agree with me, you're going to go through at least a few moments where you say is this any good?

And should I carry on?

I don't even know, right?

Imposter syndrome.

Fear, self doubt, hesitation, writer's block, creative block, whatever it may be.

Sometimes in these bigger scale projects in life, I really believe you just need someone in your corner.

You need a partner, you need a coach.

And if I look at the way I did things and the struggles that I went through doing everything by myself from the beginning, it was just have been so much more fun and enjoyable and efficient if I had someone like who I'm trying to be now for people.

Even if you want that customized as a coach.

Right.

I don't want you there all the time, but I need you for this and that.

It can go piecemeal.

I'm creating these mini courses to help people through different steps and phases of the whole event.

And that is how I got into it is because it came naturally.

But I also loved it and I see a space for this.

I couldn't agree with you more because I've talked to in the mid-80s Children's book authors that I've talked to and as I delve into the business part of their children's book publishing.

None of us can make enough money using a one off book or even three off book series.

There is things that come to you that you have to.

That's why I ask about a business plan.

You have to recognize that you have to find a way to take your one product and have supplementary ways of creating revenue.

And to your point, I talked to children's book author Marlee Costner, episode 76.

She wrote a book called Anan and it's about a cow doing yoga and it's very cute.

But what she found is people loved her book but she ended up getting so many requests on how do I become a published children's book author that she actually set up her own publishing company, Garden Wolf publishing House, episode 85, and is now coaching people from right the initial thought.

She even helps them with their book business.

And I thought, wow, this is incredible.

I'm also finding is there's more and more of us looking at how do I monetize this in a way that I can keep supporting my habit?

Because once you get into this thing of writing children's books, it's almost like a habit.

And you got to pay for your habit some way.

Some of us like to ski, but a lot of people like to do children's books.

And how do you continue to support that?

The one thing I also noticed in your book, and I love, and I'd love to hear how it's helping you, is that you use a QR code at the back of your books.

And that QR code when I scanned it, the one that I scanned, of course, took me to 10 tips to keep your cool as a cucumber.

Talk to us about that and how has that helped you maybe get your message out more?

Yes, this is something I learned.

I guess it was actually after I initially published the first children's book.

And I'm constantly trying to learn and to develop and grow within this space.

And as we know, just like any other industry, it is constantly evolving and developing.

You learn something from every person you listen to or any program that you join or whatever it may be, you're always going to get at least one takeaway.

That's what I have found.

Even if it wasn't the greatest, you'll at least take one thing away.

And one thing I learned along the way, but I had to edit the book and republish, which is another great thing about being an indie publisher and author is that if you error, if you have another great idea like this, you can simply go in and change your files and in less than 24 hours, it's all up live.

So I really love that flexibility too.

And I want to pick up on that for one second because, yeah, that is such an important point that Katie's talking about as an independent children's book author or even self published.

Self published is going to cost you a little bit more because you're usually working with third party.

But on the same token, like Katie said, like Katie, one of the things that we had is somebody said to me, oh, you should have a book plate.

And I thought so.

We had published our first book, which is called the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear.

And somebody said, you should have A book plate.

And I said, a book plate.

At first I was thinking they meant the plate and hang it on the wall or something.

But what they were talking about is at the front of the book was adding in a place where you could say this book belongs to.

Because most people with children's books are giving them as gifts, whether it's the grandparent, the parent, a friend, family member.

And so I thought, wow, I'd love to add it, but now what?

But when I found out what a book plate was and I went back to our graphic artist and he said, Rick, you know what he said?

I left enough room on the front inside cover because this was what our front inside cover looked like in the beginning, which was just the title of our book.

And then he said, I can move it up and I can drop your book plate right on that page.

And I said, brilliant.

And he did that.

It wasn't very expensive for him to do that.

And to your point, I had learned to download the files.

So I just download the files and away it went.

Anybody purchasing the book after three or four months after our first publishing release, they were getting it with a book plate.

So to your point, the nice thing about being an independent or self published children's book authority, you can make those changes to your file, nobody knows.

Because it's not like somebody's reading, they buy 10 of these and they read them all 10 of them.

They buy one and they read it.

Thank you.

It's such an important message to talk about.

Yeah, I agree.

To have that level of control, it does really start to feel like your business.

And I've heard all kinds of stories on the other side of the equation from my clients who some of them even have a book that was traditionally published and then they also have one that some people do both.

And a lot of the stories on the other side are just these stories of rigidity and feeling really bogged down by all the rules that they.

It doesn't feel like your project anymore sometimes.

Yeah, it's not always the case.

So I don't want to completely bash that side sometimes.

It's obviously a great play and you're going to maybe blow up way bigger than you would if you are indie published.

But we have to, as indie publishers and indie authors, embrace those little things that are actually a huge part of your success as well, because you can add these things that make a big difference.

When I came onto that QR code idea because someone said you've gotta find a way instead of just plugging your email on the back of every book, which I also do along with my website.

How are you gonna keep in touch with people?

How can you try to get them still engaged with you after they buy a book?

This idea of a QR code and giving away this fun freebie, I just loved it.

And so I redid the files for muddy spokes.

I added it there.

At the back of each children's book, there's a different freebie that you get for following my QR code.

And then your email comes into my list.

Right.

And I actually done nearly enough emails.

I don't want to bombard people, but I can do a much better job at staying in touch and offering value and not being annoying.

Because there's some emails I get from some people and they're brilliant and I like to read them, and they put me in a nice state of mind, and that's what I want to try to replicate more of.

But the good news is that if someone does that QR code at the back of your book, you give them this freebie that probably takes you an hour to develop and plug in.

And then they've got this freebie, which is super cool.

Like, one of mine was even the one illustration that never made it into my book.

And why?

Because in my first book, it was a funny story, but I literally.

I drew too many pictures and I messed up my pagination.

And then I had to think fast.

I'm like, what am I going to do?

One of these illustrations has to go.

But I love all of them.

Which one is it going to be?

I love it.

And then I thought, when I came up with the QR code idea, I thought, oh, this is perfect.

Now I can still share it with people.

I want to pick up on that because I am so glad you're excited about QR codes.

I love QR codes.

And what I notice is a lot of children's book authors, they'll turn around and they'll make a bookmark and they'll give it out as for free.

But that's as far as it goes.

What I did is created a bookmark with a QR code, and what it does is it gives you a free audiobook.

So my middle granddaughter has the perfect voice for Caboose, as Caboose is a female and she read the story.

You get the audiobook to read along with the book.

The other thing is, my oldest granddaughter is the inspiration behind Caboose, and she tells the story behind the story.

So when we give these out to encourage people to purchase our book or they purchased our book, they not only get the audio story, but they actually get the story behind the story.

Or on how Caboose came to life.

I took that a bit farther.

This is my business card and there's a QR code on the front of it.

If you scan that QR code, it takes you to the latest episode on Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors Podcast.

I love that.

So to everybody, listen to what Katie's saying.

And you don't have to think because you just published your book and you don't have a QR code in there.

It doesn't mean that you can't go back and modify your book and add that, as Katie called it, value added.

Katie's given you three different types of value adds because she's got one different value add per book.

So that's very cool.

Yeah, thank you.

And I'm just like you.

I put those QR codes everywhere because it's one thing to hand out a card.

I just did this at my book signing when I designed the card.

It feels like every time I go to an in person event, I'm not happy with whatever my giveaway was before.

So I redesign it.

I do it all over again.

And this time I thought, you gotta make it so easy for people these days or they're just not gonna do it and we're all the same.

Instead of just saying, visit my website, just QR code, then they'll do it right there on the spot.

It's interesting you should say that because again, you got me so excited with these QR codes.

One of the children's book authors, Catherine Clark, felt episode 75, that was on our show.

She said, rick, I'm going to the Williamburg Book Festival for children's book authors.

And I have a booth there.

And it's probably before you're going to actually release my episode.

And I said, you know what?

I can work with you.

Tell me when your book event is, and what we'll do is we'll work together and I'll release it earlier and you can tie it in to the podcast show.

So what she did is she was appreciative.

She made up signage with a QR code.

And the moment you come to her booth when she's talking to you about her book, she said, if you'd like to find out more about me as a children's book author, just scan the QR code and listen to me on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors Podcast.

And she just sent me a picture of her in action because it just ran this weekend.

And I thought, wow.

Like, that's the power of using QR codes, is you can modify it and use them in so many different ways.

Yep.

I love that.

So tell us.

I'm curious, because we've talked about indie publishing, and so when it came to publishing your children's books, what was the biggest challenge?

Maybe think back to the first one.

And what has changed now that you've launched your third book?

Great question.

For my first book, the greatest challenge was illustrating.

Because I wrote that first book in no time, and I liked it, and I put it through an editor and all that stuff, and it was good to go.

And then my original plan was just to hand that script off to an illustrator, because I wasn't an illustrator.

I was a writer.

So I was going to hand that off to an illustrator and have them illustrate it.

And that was going to be my whole process.

And then this idea came to my mind as I'm reading through this story and this manuscript, and I'm thinking, what if on the front cover, it could say, written and illustrated by Katie Cooperman, not just written by Katie Cooperman.

Because I do come from an artistic background.

I'm a very creative person.

When I was a kid, I drew a lot, and I did go to art classes.

And, you know, I wasn't coming from zero.

And especially with my kids, when they were small, we used to draw together, and I would constantly draw freehand, their favorite characters, Paw Patrol or Spider man or these things.

And my kids and even my husband always say, that's actually really good.

And I just had fun with it.

And then I thought maybe I actually could do this.

So I started researching like crazy how.

Because I really wanted to be able to do a hand drawing first, because my favorite part is the sketch.

I want to do the by hand first and then somehow digitize it.

I did eventually teach myself how to do that, but it was a lot of trial and error.

I didn't understand why.

Why does this digitization not look the way it's supposed to look in my head?

Because I didn't understand the process.

And so that was my biggest challenge, was learning which programs to use, how to use them to make it look like it looked in my head on paper.

And it took me a long time.

I eventually got in a groove, but that was challenge one for book.

For book.

And then I noticed when I went to do my second book, I was so much faster at illustrating because I had the process.

And it was no longer a daunting task because now I knew what I was doing.

And so that part went by so much faster.

And I think from book one to book three, biggest challenge for book three, sometimes it's just about carving out that time.

Because when it comes to illustrating, because I write the books very fast, but the illustrating, it's like I have to create goals and stay on track and that helps me tremendously.

So I think a lot of it, the battle is the time.

But you always forget about all the little things you have to do.

Don't forget about your ISBN, don't forget about your copyright page, don't forget about your dedication message.

Don't forget about.

It's all these things.

And then if you've got the final files, and then you have to worry about all the things inputting into wherever you're publishing.

Right.

Whether it's KDP and ingramspark, you need descriptions now.

You need to worry about keywords and categorization and all these things matter.

So it is a big process.

I think you get better and better at it as you go.

But my biggest thing that helps me, and I hope this helps someone watching this show, if you state your goal out loud, even if it's just to yourself, it always works.

I hadn't illustrated anything yet.

And I said, by the second last week of November, I've gotta be published.

And I just.

That's what I said.

And then it was just go until then.

And I did it.

I published, I think, even a week or two before that.

So it really works when you crystallize those goals and make them real and make them sound real to yourself or other people, it really does work.

It helps you stay on track.

And drawing from your first book to your second to your third, you get more comfortable in your skill level.

Absolutely, you do.

And what also helps, I find, because I'm still with spokes sometimes I think, and even my kids said to me, why don't you pull in a little illustration or a background from one of the other books into the most recent book?

Because that could be so cool.

And so sometimes I do find an opportunity to do that.

And I that too.

They all.

If you're paying attention, you'll be saying, oh, that's the clock from book one.

I remember that.

Yeah.

And makes it a cool and cohesive experience from start to finish.

But also, that saves me time, because if I like that and then I just zoom it in a little more, make it a little bit different, it saves time as well.

And you're also tying the whole experience altogether.

Fantastic.

I appreciate that.

And you know what?

Everybody's got their own ideas, because my youngest granddaughter, whose name is Katie, by the way.

Oh, nice.

And she loves to draw.

When we first published our first book, we added activity pages, because the whole premise of how our first children's book is, my granddaughter and I went and we sat down and we wrote a story, and then we etched it out, each page, and we added these activity pages.

In our first book, where you had pages to write and pages to draw your story, we encouraged you, as a child and a family member, whether it's a parent or grandparent, to do the same thing.

And then my youngest granddaughter, Katie, show people how they can take their plushie.

And that, because that's what we did.

We had a plushie, and then we turned the plushie into our main character.

And so Katie, in our second book, she showed people four stages on how to create a hero out of their plushie.

And so we added that in.

Yeah.

That is so cool.

So it was definitely fun.

The thing about being an illustrator, and you're a very good illustrator, I love what you've done, is now that you're doing coaching with someone to publish a children's book, are you thinking of doing any illustrating for others also?

That's really not part of my plan.

Okay.

And if someone said to me, I love your style, and they liked exactly the way that I did the illustrations for these books, yes, I would absolutely be open to that.

But I think what people need to understand is I'm still very much a newbie in that space.

And so if they don't like that style, because it's a very specific style, it's a hand sketch, and then I'm ink lining that sketch by hand, and that's what becomes the vector image onto the computer.

So you have these tight black outlines, and then we color it on the computer however you like.

So it's a very specific look.

And if someone isn't looking for that look, I'm really not your gal.

I totally understand what you're saying.

We've published two books in our series so far, but my oldest granddaughter and my other four grandchildren, we've actually written 38 stories in our book series.

Now, we got to hit the jackpot to be able to ever bring them all to life.

However, we use the same so far we've used the same illustrator who happens to be out of the uk, but we like it because he gets what we're trying to convey.

Like you said, there's a certain style that you're trying to capture and you visualize it in your mind and how do you get that to come to life?

Exactly.

Thank you.

Your website.

I want to talk to you about your website.

You have a great website.

Thanks.

Talk to us about.

And I love your slogan, by the way.

Feel, learn, do.

Talk to us about Feel, learn, do.

What is that all about?

Thank you so much.

I have changed that so many times on the front page of my website.

It's a statement I came up with for my very first bio that I ever wrote for the back of my young adult novel about bullying and mental health.

Because I was trying to figure out back then, what am I going to write on this bio that's going to set me apart a little bit or say something unique that is going to stick in people's heads.

And then I dug a little deeper.

What am I really trying to do through everything that I write?

Why am I writing?

And I am a huge believer that we are driven by our emotions.

We are driven by our feelings.

Whether we choose to admit that or not, it's true.

In business, in personal life, in professional life, in day to day, we are driven by our emotion.

And I love the challenge of trying to make people really feel something if they read just one sentence or one paragraph or one whole book.

I want to make people feel something.

And then what?

Okay, so now I felt something because you felt something.

Maybe that will make you want to learn something from that feeling.

So why did you feel so deeply about this book I wrote or this post I wrote about or anything?

What did you learn?

And do you wanna learn further?

So why did you feel that way?

And then what can we learn from those feelings?

And then from there.

Now if I've felt something deeply and I've learned something, there's no point in learning if I'm not going to make some kind of positive action after that or any kind of action to bring that forward into my life.

And so that's the do, that's the act I always try.

And I remember someone saying to me after they read that novel, they said, you really did make me feel, learn and want to do, want to have the positive action.

And the message in that book is really about the importance of talking openly and speaking up.

I remembered that person saying that to me and it meant the world to me.

That they said that.

And so when I was late, my late latest redesign of the website and trying to refigure this main home hero image and banner and what do I want to convey right away?

And the same thing even goes, if I really think about it, that statement defines what I'm trying to do in every facetime of my professional life.

So even when I'm coaching someone, I want to make you feel comfortable.

I want to make you feel motivated.

I want to make you feel capable of doing this, because you are.

And then I want you learn all the nitty gritty tools that you need to bring this forward.

And then I want you to do it and feel amazing and achieve that goal.

One of my favorite sayings, because it helped me back for a long time, was this idea of perfection.

Now, what I say to people is done is better than perfect.

And you and I talked about this earlier about, okay, you can make changes later.

It's not your children's book or your book is not anything you do is not etched in stone.

You can go back and change it.

It's important that as an aspiring children's book author who wants to be published, remember one thing.

Done is better than perfect.

Like Katie's been talking about, like I've been talking about.

You can go back and make additions, value, add, whatever you want to do later.

It's not that difficult.

I love that you have that model.

There's a different way of saying it.

I always like to say progress over perfection.

It's the exact same idea.

And I think way, way too many of us get caught up on this idea of perfectionism and type A personality.

And to be honest, I used to be a lot more on that side of the equation.

And believe it or not, I believe it's my children who actually taught me in life not to be that way.

Because life is messy.

Life is imperfect.

Yes.

And especially when you have kids and you got like, dinner, it's not going to look perfect.

It's just got to get cooked.

And you got to get your kids fed and you got to get out the door for whatever activity is coming your way.

Absolutely.

Even.

Even when there's an argument or a fight, that's the imperfection.

And then kids are so beautiful this way.

They just boop.

Okay, I'm over it.

Moving on.

I'm like, oh, my gosh, how the hell out of this so fast?

I'm still way over here.

But it's a great lesson.

And I've seen lots and lots of clients and friends get so hung up on this perfectionism and I always like to say when even my kids and I are doing something or whenever I say okay, it, it might not be perfect, but what is it?

Good enough and we're moving on.

Absolutely.

I couldn't agree with you more.

Talk to us about how you're using your social media to promote your books.

Yes.

So I will be very honest.

I hate social media.

I can't tell from your videos.

I promised myself.

I know in this space you absolutely have to be on it and I agree with that.

But I don't like it.

I think there's way too much fake and now with AI and you don't know what you're looking at.

I just despise the fact that so many people I know go on there and then they're comparing themselves and they're doom scrolling as one of my kids calls it and it's so unhealthy.

I feel however, because I have to be on it for business and I do believe that I do.

And because I've noticed what kind of videos I really appreciate from other people that I follow and because I need to be true to my personality and my values and myself, I have promised that whatever is going on there is unfiltered, it's unedited and it's all me.

I do a lot of talking head videos and I just get real and I try to talk fast.

I'm a fast talker anyway.

But I try to talk fast so people still stay interested without me editing it all out so it sounds all choppy.

Right.

And I talk about lately I have been more on the bring your book to life coaching side things because I think it's helpful for people and especially if people have this dream which I think there are.

I actually just read a crazy stat that it's not even that new.

Over 80% of Americans want to write a book, 3% actually write it and only 1% finish it and publish it.

So it's a massive goal.

People feel lost in this space.

So I really try to give people a snippet of value with each video or I go on there and I like to do this kind of stuff.

I say I wrote spokesblows attire recently just got launched and I want to share one important lesson and I think you'll like this one quote from the book and I go like this and I read something and then I want to leave them with something for the day.

That's the way I try to get my books out there.

But I also use link tree to make sure someone can just go to my bio, click one link and then they can see all my books, I can see a YouTube channel.

They can quickly get to where they want to go if they're interested in learning any more about me.

But bottom line, I use social media to just get real and put something up that I hope will be the tiniest bit of value for someone.

And I hope that especially in this latest day and age with lots of fake videos, lots of AI driven stuff, I am believing strongly and seriously hoping that is all going to lead to this huge influx of human beings saying, I need human connection.

I don't want to watch any more of this fake stuff.

And they'll gravitate to the real talking heads out there, I'm hoping.

Okay, talk to us about how you're also using your website to promote your books website.

I should do more on there.

To be perfectly honest, if I could write regular blog posts, cause I love to write, so I should be writing more blog posts, should be linking more videos on there.

But I really don't.

What I do with my website is right now I have a page on there that's about coaching.

If people are interested in that, that will eventually be linking to these mini courses that I am currently in the development phase of.

So I'm very excited about that.

My website will actually be way more functional.

Coming up, many courses.

Are you going to do a mixture between free and paid or what's your plan?

All paid.

All paid.

I have run some free stuff in the past and what I've noticed and what I've learned from my research in this space and I've done a lot of it now and I've taken other people's programs and there's a common theme of if you give people things for free, free, you're actually doing them a disservice because they are not taking it seriously and they're not taking themselves seriously in that learning development course or whatever it is that you're offering, right?

I ran a free masterclass and all these people signed up and one or two showed up.

It was crazy to me.

I've been the same in the past.

If something is free, put it on in the background.

But I'm busy over here.

If someone pays even a small amount.

And all my courses I'm planning to make very affordable, minus my big flagship course that will take you from A to Z and that's the high ticket, right?

But everything else is going to be so easy for people to say, yes, I'm going to solve that one micro problem that I'm having with this course.

And it's an easy buy, and I like her style, and let's go.

That's what it'll be more of.

My wife has a saying for me.

She says, rick, you not only give the milk away for free, you give the whole cow away for free.

So I guess I'm challenging anyone listening is that it's okay to give something away for free, but don't give everything away from free.

Because again, publishing a children's book comes at a cost.

And it doesn't matter whether you're independently published or even traditionally published.

It does come at a cost.

Motivation.

I know you talked about a young adult book you wrote, but I'm curious.

You talked about your blog and about the wheel, but was there any specific person?

Like when you were thinking of your character and coming up with spokes, was there anyone that motivated you to actually come up with that idea because it's a very unique idea, or was there an event?

No.

When I wrote the blog post, I really don't remember.

I don't remember how.

I don't remember how I thought of the wheel analogy, But I knew I needed a visual to get my point across in that blog post.

Other than that, I don't know.

It wasn't a person, though.

No problem.

Let's talk about Spokes, because that's a great character.

Thank you.

Had a lot of fun reading the two books.

Tell us about your main character, Spokes.

It's one thing that you developed the idea from a wheel, but then you went and you developed a bike tire.

Spokes is a bike tire.

I was thinking what led you from a wheel out of a story in a blog to a bike tire and it becoming your main character.

The blog, it was a bicycle wheel because I wanted to illustrate the spokes.

That was the key part.

And then because I was focusing on the hub is you.

The spokes are all the different elements of your life, and then the wheel is your world.

Because I was always thinking about these spokes, I thought, I'm gonna call the character Spokes.

Talk to us about Spokes's sister, Roly Poly.

And then I actually want to tell people about a technique that you used.

I don't know if you used it consciously, but I wanna talk to you about a character that actually isn't even an illustration.

Talk to us a little bit about Roly Poly.

I wanted to bring in a sib for the dynamics of being driven crazy, because if anyone has a sibling, I'M sure they can relate to this.

And then with each book, and this was actually an afterthought.

It was after the original manuscript was written, the first draft.

I was watching the way my children were reading books that we would read together and what would light them up.

And it was always the ridiculous puns or the funny, clever thing that went along with the character.

So then I got the idea to make it more funny and to bring in these.

And they really are ridiculous.

I think someone even wrote me a review saying the puns are a little ridiculous.

But I did love the story.

That's a point.

Exactly.

And for kids, you have to be more obvious.

You can't be so clever.

Like you would say a pun to an adult.

It has to really be very obvious.

What I loved about the technique I wanted to talk to you about was you use words to create character.

Now, I don't know if that's conscious, but I saw characters in just words.

One word that you really use well is Wheelie.

Instead of really Wheelie.

I thought of Wheelie as a character even though it wasn't a character.

So you see where my mind went.

Yeah, that's cool.

Yeah.

So talk to us about really.

I got this idea, and I actually think it was originally when I didn't know how to do this by myself.

I worked with a interior book formatter.

So she was putting the text on my illustrations for me until I figured out how to do that on my own as well.

And she came up with this idea.

I just sent her the text.

She started highlighting these accent words.

Most often the puns in the book, like Wheelie trying to think of another one.

Right now I'm a tire, but I'm not tired.

All of these accents.

Rock and roll.

Rock and roll.

And she put them in this different font and a different color.

Yeah.

And I loved that effect because it made it more exciting to read the book.

And it was from my perspective that I saw that as a character, even though it wasn't a character.

Interesting.

Yeah.

That's really cool.

That's just added maybe confusion or maybe visualization, either or more of an experience.

And someone else said to me that read the book with her kids.

She said she liked it for the little kids, especially, because it enabled them to read it easy.

It was easier for them to pick up on these things and read because the text wasn't all molded together.

And so for all those reasons, I kept that up through all the books.

That's terrific.

That's terrific.

When you look at all your Books and the connections.

Talk to us about the underlying theme for all your books.

I am going to say the overarching theme here through all the books is personal empowerment.

Because I really believe at any age, if you are brought up, you need to be brought up in a very supportive environment where you feel like a million bucks every day.

And your parent says thank you when you do something for them.

Your parent says good morning and gives you a hug and kiss every single day.

Your parent says, I love you before you leave.

And you are in that space.

So you need that first.

I really believe you need that first.

And you have to be made to feel important no matter how old you are.

And if you have that, then the foundation, you need to feel like an empowered person in your daily life.

But then you need all the other tools because you need to know that there is no thing too big that you can't tackle.

You need to know that you can get over any hardship.

You need to know that even when the going gets tough, you can keep going.

You need to know that you can have control of your emotions.

Even if, when you feel out of control, you can use tools to get you back in control.

And you can also know that if I can manage my emotions and treat people with kindness and feel like an important person on this earth, then I can live my best life.

And so I think it all goes back to that personal empowerment.

And so when we go from the feel to the learn, talk to us about the central lesson in your books.

The feel go one at a time.

So in Muddy Spokes, the feel is, ooh, I feel really bad for this wheel.

This tire, it, it's in trouble and it got bullied and it got lost and it got sprayed with mud over and over again.

I feel bad and that wheel must feel bad.

But, oh, then the, okay, they get up, they keep going.

They, oh, they ask for help.

They ask the police officer for help because they don't know where they're going.

Okay, things are looking better now.

Learning what to do next, being resourceful.

I gotta ask for help.

I don't know where I am.

And then that, that do that action of I can make it.

And I specifically made Spokes late at the end because I didn't want it to be perfect.

It's not going to work out perfectly every time.

But Spokes gets to school and then talks to the teacher, says, sorry that it's late.

Teacher understands.

Teacher has had so many muddy days too.

And wow.

So there's the do, right?

And then in speedy, Spokes waking up, feeling worried, having so much to do on this day.

The feeling there is.

I feel worried.

I can relate to this.

I've had days where I feel stressed out because we're running late and I gotta go here and I gotta go there and I forgot about my school project and all this overwhelming spinning thoughts in our heads that can sometimes take us over even as adults.

Right?

And so then from there we learn.

Okay, so spokes feels that.

And then it knows it just needs to take a breath and slow down.

Okay, so now learning those tools, what to do next.

And then there's the tools.

Okay, so there's tools.

And then now putting those tools into action, the doing.

And then what happens on the other side of the doing?

Well, we feel better.

And now we don't have a spinning thoughts and we've slowed things down and we're in more control.

And then in spokes, blows a tire.

It's all about other things in your life driving you crazy, such as siblings, such as parents, such as school, such as things not always going your way and you start to feel like you are going to explode until you learn that all those things that are making you so upset, you have zero control over.

You can't control what the teacher's gonna teach that day in gym class.

You can't control what your sibling does to try to bug you and push all your buttons.

And you need to have the control within.

And asking yourself that key control question, is there anything I can do to change this right now?

And if that answer is no, then coaching yourself through to get to the other side of that, to be your happy, best self.

And that's the doing the work.

Terrific.

Thank you.

I'm curious now about your writing process because I want you to go back when you first started to write and now bring us forward is do you find yourself doodling a bit to create a story?

Or what's your writing process look like now?

I think fundamentally I am.

I'm a writer in my core, so I always start there.

Okay.

I'm a words girl, so I write all the words.

And then as I'm writing, depending on how fast it's pouring out of me, because I'm a big believer that if stuff is flowing, you don't even pay attention to errors on the page.

Get it all out or it's going to be.

It could be gone.

It depends how fast things are going sometimes as I'm writing and if I feel stuck, I'll get an idea of an illustration that I want to do.

Or how I could bring something to life.

So I'll write myself a note and then I'll keep going and go on that way.

Good for you.

Thank you for sharing that.

And I want to take you on a little bit of a journey to your first book.

And then I'm going to pull you forward to your third book.

So talk to us about what you thought success would look like when you published your first children's book.

And here we are now you've published your third children's book.

Tell us the big difference or tell us what success looked like in your mind when you wrote your first book and what the reality of the success looks like now.

I think before the first book, I thought it was going to blow up.

I thought it was going to just explode.

Massive success.

And I had a great hunch.

I made some great sales.

Was it nearly as big?

No.

And now fast forward into the third book.

I never thought that it was going to spin off into coaching, which I'm finding so exciting and so rewarding when, listen, that idea crossed my mind years ago and I was just not interested.

It's always got to be the right time, the right place.

It has to make sense for you.

And everything just fell into that place.

And now I'm almost surprised that I'm enjoying it that much.

How are you going to marriage the children's book authorship and the coaching side of it?

How do you see those two worlds?

I don't want to say they're going to collide, but how do you see them living in harmony together?

I have so many ideas for mini courses because I want to do it differently.

I don't want to just say, but coach, I'll take you from idea to finished because that's not always the way people like to work.

And I noticed even myself, maybe you don't have a problem with every single aspect of the process.

Maybe you're going to be great at one and not another.

I want to create these micro mini courses that each deliver one small goal achievement.

Right now I'm focusing more on the nonfiction space of coaching with these courses, but I'm definitely going to go into the children's book space and for example, how to outline your children's book manuscript, how to get your loose idea in your head into an actual children's book idea.

That's just one small piece of the puzzle.

And then another small piece might be okay, You've got the book written, now what and how to get it actually up and publish.

So let's pick up on that whole idea of what advice would you give to aspiring children's book authors?

The advice that I would give is to work through the project bit by bit and don't allow yourself to think too much big picture at the beginning.

The big picture idea is really just the idea of the book that's already big picture enough.

I have this idea, how do I make it into a book?

And that's as big picture as you should go.

Because if you start getting wrapped up in all the nitty gritty details that you actually need to do in order to bring this to full fruition, you're probably going to stop in your tracks and not get started.

This is the classic scenario of, oh, that's way too daunting.

How am I going to do that?

Who do I think I am?

Imposter?

Everything gets started.

So really just saying, okay, I have this idea and I think it's good.

And now I'm just going to try to get that idea down on paper, not worrying about pages, not worrying about anything else.

You're going as a children's book author.

Ideas, nonstop ideas.

Actually, I'm sitting here and I. I know you have a blank screen behind you, and I'm thinking, I can see all these ideas popping all over the screen like it's wild.

So you can see I'm a very visual person.

Yes, I love that.

Encouragement through readers.

Why should children's book readers purchase your books?

I want my books to have the three pieces the feel, learn, do, but within that, I want them to be fun, but I do want them to take away something.

And I guess that's the underlying teacher and coach in me.

I know there's lots of books out there that are just phenomenal, and I might get more into this space where you're learning something, but just through the story instead of being taught.

Right now, this Spokes series.

There is a teaching moment at the end of every book.

And I know not everybody appreciates that, but if you are the kind of parent or kid that likes that takeaway, then you're gonna love my books.

Because not only are they funny and fun and there is a story, but you do have that teaching moment at the end.

Fantastic.

And Katie, I want to get your final thoughts.

I know you shared a lot.

It's fantastic and I appreciate that.

And there's definitely a lot of.

Of content that I haven't discussed with others before.

And I think it's because of your unique background.

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

Actually.

This was a very thorough interview, and I really appreciate all your questions.

I need to tell you because they're very thoughtful questions, and I love that.

I love getting in deep conversations with people.

So thank you for that.

I think if there's one thing that I would say as a closing remark, it would be now is an exciting time for people to write a book.

And there's truth in that stat.

Because almost everybody that I ever meet who says, oh, what do you do for work?

And I tell them, almost every single one of them says, oh, I've been thinking about writing a book.

Or they say, I really want my husband to write a book because he has an amazing story.

Or my friend or my mom or my.

This.

It's a real goal of people's, and it's an amazing goal.

And you think about storytelling around forever.

Exactly.

And some people would sit here and argue, everybody's not an author because they shouldn't be an author.

But I'm actually on the complete opposite side.

And I believe that if you have a story in your head, and it could be a personal story, it could be a trauma that you've come out of that you need to share, it could be a life memoir, it could be a funny idea for a kid's book or a lesson book, whatever it is, you have that idea for a reason, and you deserve to bring it to fruition the same way you bring all kinds of other things in your life to fruition.

And now that the traditional publishing space is slowly breaking down and there's all this accessibility in front of us, as anyone can be an author today, and I really strongly believe that real, great, intelligent people are not going to want to read stories written by AI so go get out there and write your story and get help along the way and bring it to life, because it's absolutely possible.

And that feeling that you're going to have when you hold your first book in your hands and get to say, I did this.

It is like no other feeling.

It's golden.

Katie, 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.

Whoa.

Will significantly help aspiring authors and readers.

And we promise to provide our audience with links to Katie's social media, her website, her books, and if you've enjoyed this episode, please hit the subscribe button to listen to future episodes and feel free to share this episode with anyone inspired by or who enjoys hearing about Katie and her children's.

Book series, Spokes and Spokes Blows a Tire.

Thank you, Katie.

Thank you so much for having me.