Emily chats with Brian W. Parker, co-owner of Believe in Wonder Publishing. He and his wife Josie write, illustrate, publish, and sell stories of magic and imagination to children in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. He talks about balancing the creative side of the work with marketing and publicity, all the while parenting young kids. Brian travels around the country giving talks, moderating panels, and often directly selling his books to conference goers and independent bookstores.

Yeah, yeah. And that's, and, you know, I think they get

a small salary. Sometimes I give them candy in exchange for

gold goldfish crackers.

Like I'm gonna give them to keep the cash, you know,

we're gonna put it in the savings account for you. But in

exchange for that, yes, here is a box of sticks you

you're listening to the hybrid pub

Scout podcast with me. Emily einerlander, we're mapping the

frontier between traditional and indie publishing, and today we

have a special interview with Brian Parker of believe in

wonder publishing. Believe in wonder is a youth focused

publishing entity based in Portland, Oregon. And without

further ado, let's get to the interview. This is Brian Parker,

and he is the author, illustrator and publisher and a

bunch of other stuff at believe in wonder publishing, and we're

going to talk a little bit today about his work and life and how

he negotiates life as an independent publisher. So Brian,

tell us a little bit about your business and what what you do,

day in it and day out.

Yeah, oh, um, well, I I've always been a storyteller,

ever since I was a little kid, and throughout life, I've

negotiated ways of finding how to incorporate that into my day

job. So with, sometimes with, with a good bit of success, and

other times not so much. But I went to school to be a graphic

designer and illustrator, and you know, I'm bounced back and

forth with a bunch of different industries throughout my life,

and eventually my my lovely wife, Josie, of 17 years now,

got tired of me whining about it, just like you need your

storyteller. Stop, stop taking all these other jobs to the kind

of half, half do it and just commit to it. And I'm like,

Okay, you're right. Thank you.

Thank God for classes.

I know, I know it's it. Nothing beats having somebody

that can be honest in your corner and help you to kind of

sift through all of the, you know, the the accumulated crazy

of just having an adult life, you know, sometimes, yeah, you

just kind of rack up a lot of, a lot of assumptions and

expectations based on what you think you should be doing, as

opposed to listening to that, That voice that's inside of you

that's telling you, oh, you know, this is where your heart

is, and actually following it. Sometimes you just need a good

friend or or someone that you love to tell you, Hey, listen to

it and stop being, stop being an idiot. So I'm lucky that I have,

I have that so yeah, went to Portland State publishing

program, got my masters essentially just to reassure

myself that I knew what I thought I knew and and to find a

cohort of interesting people and other people that love books,

and now we were full time publisher as to answer your

question, that was the roundabout way of answering the

question. Just to kind of preface, what we are is a little

bit of a conundrum in the modern day publishing setup is that we

are a full time publisher that primarily focuses on publishing

stories that are, you know, magical and inventive and

creative in, I guess, in the in the drive of the storytelling,

but also focus on diverse storytelling, as far as you

know, different characters from different cultures and you know,

kind of promoting underrepresented voices. And the

conundrum part comes from the fact that my wife and I are both

authors, and I am an illustrator. So for the last two

to three years, we've had a backlog of stories that we've

wanted to make, and we're like, Well, you know, let's just go

ahead and make our stories first. That way we can kind of

build a catalog. Of you know, the kind of work that we're that

we're driven by and excited by, and that will also give us a

kind of a platform to talk about the things that are really

driving the storytelling and the work. So three years in here, we

got, we've published our 11th book, yeah, and we published our

11th book in October called the Boston's move in. It's about a

family of, you know, just fluffy, fun monsters that move

into a neighborhood and the feeling of of of being awkward,

being different, but also just just the kind of the stuff you

have to do to get acclimated to a new neighborhood, you know,

you gotta, you gotta find where your grocery store is, you know,

you gotta find where you're gonna walk your dog, you know,

where's the park at. And all of these things are being

negotiated. You know, negotiating the world was this

family of, you know, big fluffy monsters. And then, of course,

all the stuff that happens and ensues when people see these,

uh, these odd people kind of show up, and the feelings that

they have and finding a way to, you know, be yourself, you know,

yeah, I grabbed that book. It's, it's

pretty adorable.

I really enjoyed making it. My wife and I were, she was

just like, we're going to write a simple story. This is going to

be something just that's this fun. We can put together in a

couple of months, and you're going to illustrate it, and then

five months later, but we finish it, and she's like, I think you,

I think you went more complicated with the

illustrations than we were expecting. But she held me true

to the simple storytelling. You know, I I usually get a little

bit verbose, even in my even in my children's books, writing. So

she said this one, stay simple. Keep it simple. Gotta have

somebody there telling you to keep it simple.

Sounds like she's a good grounding factor.

Yeah, she's kind of a, she's a, she's kind of a

curator, slash editor, slash, you know idea compactor, you

know, which is great.

So these mostly picture books, and

they're all, they're all you and Josie, right?

So they're all me and Josie. So far they range. We

have a graphic novel series that we do called, you can rely on

platypi, which is, you know, venture seeking platypus, in the

vein of Indiana Jones, and

I'm sorry this is always so cute.

I love this character. He's wildly optimistic and jumps

without looking and it's weird how so many of the characters

that we write end up being people that we know or people

that we love. So all of the, all of the wildly adventurous

characters are kind of my kids. So this in some shape, form or

fashion. So we do a graphic novel series. We do, we've,

we've done four picture books. We do, why? Well, middle reader,

the middle reader series called the wonder of science. Well, the

series is called mysteries of the Laurel society, and I'm

working on Book Two for that. The first one is the wonder of

science. And Book Two is coming out early 2019 and it's called

miraculous elements. And it's hard to describe, it's, it's, it

was definitely started off with the inspiration from, you know,

some steampunk elements and Mary Poppins.

Oh, I can see that in the illustration that

I've seen of it. Yeah, a little bit of a older woman and a

couple of little kids.

Yeah, it was, it was a weird idea. It was like, Where

did Mary poppin come from? And was she trained? Was she part of

an organization? What was her motivations? And then it just,

like most ideas, it starts as this little green and then it

just kind of just sprouts, and it just wildly grows everywhere.

So we've done a lot of real, really interesting world

building and come up with some different, you know, different

aspects of the way that magic could work where it was kind of

driven by creativity and art form. So that also lends itself

to you being able to do a lot of really cool stuff from different

cultures. So it's like, so yeah, if you have some money living in

the middle of Zimbabwe and their their master craft is to be able

to make awesome pottery, you know, how would that become

something magical? Because you make a giant, you know. An

elaborately painted pot that's like, constantly filled with

with food, you know, you can get, constantly replenishes

itself. Or somebody that lives in Sweden and wants to make

scarves, and they make the scarf that can allow you to become

intangible and move through solid objects, that kind of

stuff. So, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a really fun story,

and it's kind of amalgamation of all a lot of different things

that we're interested in. And then I did a a YA fantasy novel

called Crow and hollow, which was my first

book, right? So,

so, yeah, we kind of go all over the the youth

literature map, but at the same time, it's it's all kind of

coming from the same place of wanting to promote a creative

way of looking at the world, an empowering way of explaining

these stories to young adults, but also to people that are just

young at heart, because I read YA and I read middle reader, and

I read picture books just for myself, because that stuff is

fun and it Stokes that creative fire and kind of keeps that

young version of yourself alive.

So yeah, yeah, absolutely. Can you talk a

little bit about how your business kind of operates on a

really nuts and bolts practical level, because we were talking

about, like, we like talking about the creative process and

authors here, but we also kind of like getting into the nitty

gritty of actual, like, the work of publishing. So I'd love to

hear how that works for such a small operation to be able to

you do print books, obviously, if it's picture book, yeah, so

seems like a lot of work.

Well, you know, we, we're kind of, we're, we're

blessed in the sense that, you know, we, we have a lot of

different accumulated skills and and knowledge coming into being

in publishing, first off being a graphic designer for Oh God, a

number of years, and being a trained illustrator for a number

of years, and having worked in the periphery of publishing for

A long time, I worked as a illustrator, and a book designer

for a small Alaskan publisher for a long time, which is

primarily Alaska and some kids books and stuff. And I worked in

music publishing for a long time in Nashville. Oh, wow. So, yeah.

So I have an idea as to, you know, some of the some of the

inside aspects of the publishing world, as far as working with

printers and, you know, some of the distribution avenues and

stuff you can go through, and also just being able to design

and illustrate the books in house, which is always the

thing, especially if you know people are trying to get into

children's publishing, finding these resources is always, you

know, probably the first obstacle they have to jump over

is, I don't know any illustrators. Or, you know, how

do I contact an illustrator? How much do I pay an illustrator?

You know, what's the way to kind of maintain connections and

relationships with the people that kind of help you with the

the book building itself. So we were really lucky in that sense,

because we knew a lot of that stuff, and we do a lot of that

stuff in house. So as far as, like, our book process, you

know, building a book, you know, working through a lot of the the

process of getting the book to the point of ready to be printed

and distributed, we have that, that ability to kind of control

that, that element of the process. So, you know, we, we're

coming up with the ideas and stuff here in in house right

now. And you know, we're, we're talking through the process of

the stories and illustrating them as we go along with the

writing process. And of course, that that allows us to kind of

avoid some overhead too, because we're not, yeah, we're not,

we're not paying illustrator, because I'm doing it all for

myself. But, uh, so yeah, our small, our small publisher,

publishing houses, is essentially kind of maintained

by the fact that we can avoid some of that overhead. Our

biggest issue has been marketing, yeah and publicity,

which is is like a whole nother set of skills, especially for a

creative because, as you know, people that make stuff tend to

be really bad at you. Telling people about it. I don't know

what it is. It's just something, something inherent in putting

something together, that when you're done with it, you're kind

of like, Oh, here's this, this beautiful thing that I've done

and I'm proud of it, or I'm a little nervous about it, right?

You don't want to go ring a bunch of bells and stuff to kind

of be like, Hey everybody, look at this. It feels self serving,

yes, because

when you're creative, they always kind of,

there's a, I mean, at least my parents did this was like, Don't

be cocky, like people, like a humble person better.

Yeah, you're, you're definitely, you're definitely

taught that at a young age is that you know, if you, if you

got, if you have a special ability, if you have something,

that you're, that you're that's your, that you've put a lot of

time and stuff into, is that, yeah, you don't want to, you

don't want to, you know, try to make a big, a big thing about

it. You don't want to, you know, try to stand up on the on the

soapbox and let everybody know. But you kind of have to, if

you're going to do this as a, as a as a job, as a profession.

It's one of those things that you have to shed early on,

right? Yeah, because it's, it's strange, once you start showing

your work, if you can do it with a level of humility and still

and still be promotional about it, people actually respond to

that, you know, because there are a lot of creators out there

that that don't feel like they have the voice to talk about

their work, right? And when they see that you can do it, it kind

of empowers them to be like, Well, hey, I have stories too. I

have illustrations. I have artwork that I would love to

share with the world, and that actually ends up lending itself

well to our, our version of being visible, which is, you

know, we're not great at marketing. Actually, next year,

we're actually going to be working with the publicist,

which is, which is going to be really cool, I think, because I

think we got a lot of great stuff that can, that can lend

itself to, you know, a publicist being able to run with but up

until this point, our primary way of getting the word out is

just getting out in front of people. So the Pacific Northwest

is a great place to find events, and, you know, from small to

really large events, to get out in front of people that are

really interested and passionate about literature, or, you know,

specifically, in the graphic novel arena and and it's been

awesome. It's awesome. You know, we go to events pretty much

every month, there's always something that's available to

us. And we also work with a couple of organizations here in

in Portland, specifically right brain initiative, literary arts,

a couple of different Chamber organizations and Rotary Clubs

and that kind of thing. And also smart book. If you're familiar

with smart book, there's an organization here in Portland

that that goes out to schools, a lot of underrepresented schools,

public schools, and schools with a high number of minority

students and lower income students, and reads books to

them. You know, on it they have, they have partner, partnered

with a couple of different of civic organizations, and they go

out to these communities and they read to these kids, and

which is awesome, and it's amazing experience to witness,

because young people really crave that interaction with

adults, and also that interaction with literature,

having having it, being read to them. And those organizations

partner with us, and we come out. We'll do classes, we'll do

we'll do readings. We'll just, we'll just do opportunities

where the kids can sit down and talk to us about making books

and writing stories and stuff and that kind of that has really

been our, our bread and butter, our our saving grace, really is

being able to talk to people about this stuff and then being

encouraging and positive about them finding a way to tell their

personal stories as well.

Wow. Yeah. So would you say that most of your

sales are direct, or do you have like bookstores that you're a

part of as well?

Yeah, and as a great thing too about living in this

area is small bookstores are very supportive of independent

publishers. We do run into some roadblocks because, of course,

right now we're distributing through two different avenues,

Amazon and. In Ingram Spark. And Ingram Spark, of course, is it's

less cost effective, but at the same time, it's easier to get

your books into brick and mortar stores, because, you know, some

bookstores are resistant to having Amazon books that are

published exclusively through Amazon on their shelves, and

that it kind of sucks.

Yeah, choose, yeah.

Well, I mean, that's the thing. It's one of the first

things that we ran into, we were trying to decide. We're like,

Okay, well, we want to, you know, we're cutting down

overhead and so many other places. Let's cut down overhead

and just distribute exclusively through Amazon, because you can,

you can get a decent product through the their printing arm,

you know, which is now KDP, or, you know, Kindle Direct

Publishing. You can get a decent, a decent book that way.

Problem is, is that, here it is, you have this huge online

distribution network, and yet brick and mortar stores are

like, Ah, well, if you guys are going that way, then we're not

sure we want to carry your books in the store. And so, you know

that's, that's, that's a problem, but that's another good

aspect of being publicly, I mean being visible in the community,

is that even though small pub small bookstores don't

necessarily want to carry Amazon distribute books, they do want

to carry books by local publishers. So they have to,

they have to decide at that point it's like, oh, well, you

have a you have a strong backing, you have a strong

readership in the area. Am I gonna nickel and dime you

because of the because of the Amazon thing? So that's kind of,

we live in a weird space, because we'll show up at a small

bookstore only like, hey, you know, we'd love for you to carry

our books. And they're like, Oh, well, there's Amazon on here.

It's like, but we work with your local Rotary, and we read to,

you know, 150 kids in your in your area, and they know who we

are, so they're like, Okay, well, yeah, we'll carry your

books.

So it sounds like both a desire for

cooperation and support, but also maybe a little bit of

reputational leverage,

yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say that. I would

definitely say that it's a good way of putting it, and I think

that's something that I think a lot of people that get into

publishing don't necessarily think about in the onset, is

that, you know, you have to create good content. Of course,

you know, making a book is about making something that is, you

know, that has some some worth to it. But at the same time, we

found a way to take not only the that creating that book is not

the primary focus of what we do. We we bring in the stuff that,

the stuff that really matters to us, as far as you know, talking

to young people, encouraging young people and and basically

telling them that you know that their voices matter. So you have

to have something that you really believe in, too, you

know. You have to have a platform, you know. And our

platform becomes a driving force for the books, and the books

become a driving force for the platform, so the two feed into

each other, and they actually give us more opportunities than

we than we would even know, you know, we have people that call

us to come out and do events completely based on the fact

that we were, that we spoke at another event, or, you know,

that kind of thing. So yeah, I think that the that when you

think about it in a marketing sense, it it feels a little

dirty, because you're like, Oh, I'm using the things I believe

in to sell my books. And I'm like, but no, no, I think that

there's a, there's a weird synergy that comes from it,

because it makes doing the work and all the pitfalls and stuff

that come from doing the work, it makes them mean more, oh

yeah, not only to you, but to the people that actually pick up

the work.

So So would you say that when you began your

company, you kind of had a vision of it being like, split

between, you know, the creative process that's satisfying to

you, but then also the satisfaction that comes from,

like community outreach was that always kind of in the plan,

you know, to, I'm not gonna lie and say I had a really

strong plan that that would be misrepresent. Myself for the

scattershot kind of creative that I am, but, um, I think

that, you know, once again, I'm, I'm 5050, partner in this thing

with my wife. And Josie is a interesting person, you know,

she's, she's constantly thinking about how she can, how she can

be of service to other people, which is, which is weird,

because if you met her, you know, sometimes she's just like,

oh, no, I don't, I don't have time for

people today. Well, I guess you got to kind of

be like that when you're a generous person.

Yeah, that's the thing. And she's taught me so much

about this. But honestly, what at the beginning, I wanted to

make beautiful books. You know, I love, I love a beautiful, a

beautiful book, something that is, is an art object in and of

itself. You know, not just a story, but, you know, beautiful

illustrations, you know, well crafted, that kind of thing. And

I'm very passionate about stories and but at the same

time, my wife was telling me it's got to be about more than

just that. You know, you got to find a way to take something

that you love and make it of benefit to to others. And I

instantly gravitated towards talking to young people, because

I feel privileged in the fact that I've been able to keep the

12 year old version of myself alive through feeding him

Captain Crunch and watching cartoons and reading books,

whatever. And I realized that in the world that we live in right

now that not everybody is allotted that that opportunity

to be able to keep that version of themselves that is filled

with wonder and filled with excitement about things and is

open minded to learning you know, not only new things about

the world, but new things about themselves. And I felt like I

wanted to make stuff that encouraged that. But you can't

just make stuff to encourage that. You have to. You have to

get out and talk about it. You have to learn to be open about

it, vulnerable enough about your own experience to you know, let

a young person see that, yeah, it's, it's, it's hard in a world

where it's constantly trying to get you to kind of fit into a

certain mold, to hold on to those things that are important

to you, the things that make you happy, the things that fill you

with joy. But also it's possible, you know, it's very,

it's very possible. And by doing that, you can find a way to take

the things that that you love and improve the lives of people

around you. So you kind of have to, you have to talk the talk

and walk the walk at the same time. So, so, yeah, I mean, it

was kind of an organic, organic development of this, of the

mission that we have.

Well, how do you manage the time between the

creative work and then the outreach work? It sounds like a

lot of a lot of traveling energy put in different directions. It

must be. It is, it is,

once again, our situation is a little different

than some. We are foster parents, and we've been foster

parents for a number of years, and which allots us right now to

work from home. So we're at home with the kiddos, and we're

finding time in between chaotic joy and, you know, ruckus, to

actually get things done. And also we try to do this stuff as

a family, so when we go out to events, it's me, Joe's Victor

and Pam. And another part of it too is just having people see us

kind of manage the chaos and still be able to talk about the

books and stuff. It's, strangely enough, kind of encouraging to

people. I think, oh, yeah, but it's definitely a conversation

starter.

I know I'd be more confident in a children's

book publisher if I see actual kids with them. Make you think

it's more of a love project than just like, yeah, there's money

in children's books, which I don't even know if that's true,

but yeah, so the kids like getting out there and meeting

people as well.

Yeah, when Victor was little, we used to. Uh, when we

would go to events and stuff, he was kind of a draw for people,

because, like, if you've seen my kid, he is super cute, and he's

very gregarious and and he talks a lot, and

so, yeah, writing the books,

I hope so. I really hope so. He's got, he's such a

storyteller, if he doesn't write books, he's gonna be like an

actor or something, or, you know, musician or whatever he's

he's got a he's got so many different talents that I'm just

just trying to keep up. But, but, yeah, I mean, he was, he

loves the stuff. He would come out to the events with us, and

he's kind of our little mascot, you know. And now, now we got

cam, and Cam's got a different, a different personality. He's,

he's more subtle, he's more, you know, measured and but at the

same time, they're both just, they're bright lights, you know,

you can't, you can't stop them from shining. So they inspire

the work. So I gave them both. They both have official titles

in our company, there are CIOs, which is Chief inspiration

officers, yeah, yeah. And that's, and, you know, they get

a small salary. Sometimes I give them candy in exchange for

gold goldfish crackers,

like I'm gonna get. When to keep the cash, you know,

we're gonna put it in the savings account for you. But in

exchange for that, yes, here is a box of sticks.

Thanks for the idea, buddy.

The hope is, is that you know that it at some point,

you know this is, this will be like, it'll be something that we

can pass along to them, if, if for no other reason than for

them to be able to see that, you know, when they were kids, Mom

and Dad were were out sharing the joy with them. So, yeah, I

mean, it's, it's a weird balance. We're, we're benefited

by the fact that we are foster parents and, you know,

advocating for kids has always been part of our our lives as a

married couple, too. So this was actually just a natural, a

natural combination of that advocacy for kids and creating

books.

So, yeah, yeah, that shows well.

Thank you. Thank you. We hope so. We hope people see

it, you know, because it's, it's, it's definitely us, it's,

and it's not manufactured in any kind of way. But, uh, yeah,

yeah. I mean, it's, it's tough. It's tough managing the travel,

as far as the events and stuff are concerned. And, you know,

like any kind of, any other publishing company and stuff,

you know, we're trying to figure out, you know, where is it cost

effective to do community work? Where, where could we best serve

the, you know, the core mission of the of the company and just

where can we afford to go, honestly,

so that's how you kind of pair down which

offers you should take in terms of speaking and presenting and

stuff like that.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we had, we were really lucky last

year. We had a couple of universities down south that

requested us to come out. We couldn't do all of them, but I

was able to go and speak at Mississippi State, which is my

alma mater, and which was amazing. It was probably one of

the most I don't know. It made me feel like I had my stuff

together in the same classroom that I went to school at, I got

to see all my old professors, and they were all pat me on the

back. And they were like, Oh, you did a great job. We're so

proud you got to do this stuff. And I'm like, Oh, thank god I

didn't crash and burn. They were, they're very, very

encouraging, especially one, one of my um, one of my drawing

teachers that I I love, this woman, you know, unpassionately,

would go to her classes and just absorb everything she said. And

her name is SUNY Na, and she's short lady, but full of power

and and

I found that that's usually true. My mom's a

short woman, and she's she's got a lot of power.

I was so scared of her at one point, I really was,

because she just kind of exuded this this sense of.

Determination and and knowledge. And I got to go back to to speak

at Mississippi State. And she still had these drawings I had

made of her in class. I did a whole bunch of little

caricatures of her as various warriors from all over the

world, you know, Samurai, Warrior, Viking, that kind of

thing. She kept the sketches, and she put them on her front,

the front of her office store. So yeah, first, and I was like,

Okay, I'm doing okay. I'm doing okay. And she was super

encouraging. All of them were and, but we, you know, we found

a pair that visit that going to Mississippi State was, you know,

visiting family and that kind of thing. And one other visit we

got to do down south was we went to Jefferson state in

Birmingham. We were invited out there to do presentation and

sell some books at a comic book convention. They were just

getting off the ground, and that was a really great experience as

well. And so, so, yeah, yeah, we find ways to get these things,

get these things into the schedule, and we're hoping that,

you know, 2019 will see us doing more that kind of stuff. And my

big, my big plan is I want to do two big events a year, and I'm

shooting for San Diego. I like Comic Con. I'm shooting for San

Diego this year. I mean, 2019 but if I can't make San Diego,

then I want to do Chicago con. Because, um, we have a lot of we

have a lot of support in that area.

So, oh, great, yeah, wow, wow. That's a that's

serious stuff. Is the is the publicist gonna kind of take

some of the scheduling duties off of your plate and like

applying for stuff and

events, that's the hope. That's the hope. We also

like to be a little bit more visible as far as applying for

awards, and this would be a big help in that, in that avenue, I

know it's because we're, we're just constantly working, you

know, we're trying to, if we're not taking care of the kids,

then we're, you know, we're working on new projects. So

applying for awards. Seems like it's like the on the bottom of

the list of stuff to do, right? But it's so important when

you're working in publishing, to look for those accolades. Those

accolades give you an opportunity to be visible and

kind of continue to work. So that's another big thing this

year. I think, I think we've got some really good work. So, oh

yeah, there's some awards that we could probably pull in if we

actually applied for them.

So, oh yeah, okay, that's, that's the hope

too. Well, I think that's a good resolution for 2019,

yeah, yeah. You gotta plan. You gotta have you gotta

have goals, because it's stuff that when you get up in the

morning and you're like, What the hell am I supposed to be

doing today? It's like, oh, here's my list.

Pick one. All right. Well, do you want to plug

anything that you got coming up, whether it's book or event

or, let's say, well, actually, throughout the

holidays, where we tend to be pretty low key, but early 2019

the miraculous elements, Book Two of the mysteries of Laurel

society is going to be coming out, and I'm very excited about

that. It's going to be filled with amazing illustrations and

continuation of our of our journey, of our characters. This

time they are whisked off on an adventure at a convention of

magic, of magic craftsmen and artificers in in Chicago,

Illinois, yeah, and while they're there, there's a strange

attack and a villain makes Himself known. And our

characters kind of have to go through a bit of a chase through

the city, and they're discovering things about

themselves and about the wider world of kind of creative magic

in our story. So it's, it's, it's the next step in in the

series, which is going to be five books, and it's constantly

escalating. You know, it's like, I love my characters. They're,

they're real and very human to me, and I love seeing what the

next step is for. So I hope, I hope readers are as well. So,

so, yeah, that that coming. And then a little tiny book that

we're gonna be doing, if you guys are familiar at all with

our work. Then I did a little book called fancy dressed

animals. It was accidental book. My wife's OS told her I wasn't

gonna be working on any projects, and I said I was gonna

just do a series of drawings just for myself, really, of

animals dressed in Victorian clothes, you know. And but while

you're doing that, you're actually coming up with the

characters and the histories and personalities and stuff of them.

And by the time I was done, my wife said, you basically wrote

another book on accident out, and it's been, it's a really fun

little thing, and people pick it up at events and stuff. So I

decided I was going to do another one. But this one is not

fancy dressed animals. It's fantasy dressed animals. So it's

just come like archers and warriors and, you know, wizards

and basically any, any, any version of a fantasy character

that you can imagine, but like a hippopotamus or, you know, I

love artworks,

yes, me too. That'll be coming out in early 2019 as

well. Great. So where can people buy your

books? And where can they find you? On social media.

You can find our books on Amazon. You can search by my

name, Brian W Parker, or by my wife's, Josie a Parker. And all

that stuff is available prime and you can have it shipped to

your home. Our books are also available at a couple of small

bookstores here in the Pacific Northwest, in particular,

Powell's, another read through and green mean books. And as far

as where you can find us on social media, where you can find

us at believe and wonder on Facebook, and we're pretty

active on that site, or you can find us on our website, which is

believe and wonder.com and we post pretty regularly There to

our blog, and you can see examples of our our books and

artwork and, oh, another big thing that we do this time of

year, every year, I put out a poster in our series called The

Santa propaganda project. Oh, that's right. So I, I love

propaganda posters from World War Two. I love them for the

esthetic, but also they're they're weird in the way that

they try to kind of be persuasive. So I try to find a

way to take that style and incorporate and and use it as a

way of promoting positive things. So Santa Claus is in my

heart. I am Santa Claus.

So I can see that. I can definitely see that

I don't know why I'm eventually, I'm gonna buy myself

a really good Santa suit, and that's gonna be another thing I

do

every you're gonna just bring more joy to

children than yours.

So, yeah, I do, I do a poster in the propaganda style

from World War Two, but as Santa Claus, and they're really fun.

We've I've done it for seven years now, and this year is

going to be really good, too.

And did I see you doing like a Soviet Santa

thing at some point,

they're all, it's weird, because I will find

different inspirations. And sometimes it's Soviet propaganda

posters, yeah, and then sometimes it's British. And

then, of course, American ones were hilarious, and try to avoid

any axis powers.

Yeah, that's, that's no fun

at all. But, you know, primarily it's, it's, it's, it's

our version of Santa. We did, actually did a book about it,

called Nicholas and Sabina in the busy season, season where

our version of Santa Claus is, is, in a lot of ways, based on

the lower which is, you know, he's originally from, from

Turkey in that area. So our Santa is a Turkish Santa,

okay, I didn't know about that.

Yeah, well, you know, the the tradition says that it's

that Nicholas. You know, St Nicholas was born in

Constantinople and in that area, but he's. Originally from

Turkey, at the area that is now Turkey and all of his, all of

the things that led up to him being a saint was, you know,

giving to young people. He was, he was constantly, you know,

trying to, you know, to look after the the unloved and the

unlooked after children of the world. And so, yeah, the story

that we came up with for our Santa is definitely based in

that tradition. So, so, yeah, it's, it's weird. It's weird.

The amount of stuff I know about Santa Claus,

well, you gotta, you gotta do your

research, right?

Yes, yes, that's it research. That's it.

Research can be fun, all right. Well, I'll be

sure to link to all of that on our post, on our website, and

yeah, is there anything else that you want to share?

Or, Oh, well, I don't know just I know that sometimes

it can seem a little daunting, the idea of finding a way to

share those stories, all those things that are important to you

and that you're passionate about to the world. But as a person

that's trying to do it right now, I can say that it's totally

possible and that you have to kind of manage your

expectations. Everybody kind of wants to have that that JK,

Rowling, you know, million dollar book that comes out

right? I can say, from personal experience, that one person

walking up to you and saying, I read your book and it meant the

world to me at the time that I read it. It makes all of it

worthwhile. Yeah, I can, yeah, yeah. And it's, it's, it's a,

it's an interesting connection. It, it really kind of shows what

humanity is kind of meant for. Really, it's about inspiring the

people that you can and I had the best experience of my life.

The beginning of this year, I went to the Clackamas Rotary

Club. They were doing a smart book event. They had out about

30 or 40 kids that had been read to by the organization that

year, and they gifted them a copy of our book that had just

come out at that time. Darren Strider, Bumblebee writer. And

at the end of the event, the kids got to come up and get a

copy signed and

their first reading, I know

it was, it was amazing. It was amazing. They had these

kids standing in front of me and being like, Did you really write

this? Did you draw these pictures? And I was like, yeah,

yeah, I did. And it really did bring home why we do this stuff,

and what's it about, what's it's, what's it's, what the real

reason for doing this stuff is to inspire and encourage.

Well, I feel very encouraged right now in

publishing. So it's sometimes it can feel like, Oh, well, nobody

reads and it's all a bummer out there. But you know, that's not

true.

Special, yeah? Well, that's the cool thing about

being a creative, about being an artist in this time where it

seemed like I don't know people, people kind of suck a little

bit. Yeah? And it's just it's hard not to be

cynical.

Yeah, it's hard not to be cynical, but I think that

this is a time when when the contribution of artists really

shines is because what is art if not kind of honoring the human

experience?

You know, in a time when it's needed the most,

needed the most.

So yeah, be encouraged, creatives, you know you're the

work that you're doing is needed and necessary.

Well, thank you to Brian Parker for sharing

this time with us and sharing his books with us. I will direct

you on the show notes to his website, social media and places

where you can buy his wonderful books. Thanks for listening

today. You can find us@hybridpubscout.com you can

find us on Facebook at hybrid pub Scout, on Twitter, at hybrid

pub scout. We're on SoundCloud, Apple podcasts, player FM, just

search hybrid pub Scout, and we'd love it if you left us a

five star review. Thanks for listening and thanks for giving

a rip about books. You.

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