Writing, Self-Publishing And Marketing Books For Children With Darcy Pattison

Summary

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The Creative Penn Podcast for Writers

Episode 828: Writing, Self-Publishing And Marketing Books For Children With Darcy Pattison
Host: Joanna Penn
Guest: Darcy Pattison
Date: September 15, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this insightful episode, Joanna Penn interviews prolific children’s author and self-publishing advocate Darcy Pattison. Together, they explore the unique craft challenges of writing for children, the nitty-gritty of book production—including board books, illustration, copyright, and printing—and business strategies for profit and bulk sales to schools. Darcy, the author of 70+ books and a prominent hybrid author, candidly shares her journey and best practices for self-publishing children’s books.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Craft of Writing for Children

[21:13–25:03]

• Unique Structure and Tightness:
  Darcy compares picture book writing to poetry:

  “Picture books are a very tight art form. I sort of compare it to writing poetry. There are 32 pages...about 14 double page spreads...you have to set up a character, a problem, complicate the story, then resolve it in some satisfying way in less than 500 words while leaving room for the illustrator.”
  — Darcy Pattison [21:33]

• Print’s Enduring Importance:
  Despite the digital era, the children’s book market remains heavily print-focused.

  "Most people who independently publish will tell you that 90% of their sales are paperback...children’s books still, by and large, even for independent people like me, is a paperback or hardcover.”
  — Darcy Pattison [22:28]

• Children’s Book Categories:

  • Board books (for the very young, hard for self-pub, require offset printing)
  • Picture books (ages 4–8; parent reads to child)
  • Early chapter books (ages ~6–8; pay attention to vocabulary levels)
  • Middle grade (8–12)
  • Young Adult (YA) (14+, increasingly adult in subject matter)

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2. The Self-Publishing Journey & Creative Freedom

[25:03–28:10]

• Avoiding ‘Creative Death’
  After initial mainstream success, Darcy found the traditional publishing world stifling and turned to indie:

  “For me, the traditional publishing world is a place of scarcity...but self publishing is a place of abundance for me. I do what I want. I find stories that excite me and I put them in the hands of kids.”
  — Darcy Pattison [25:03]

• Iterative Learning:
  She self-published a very niche writing book, which taught her the mechanics of self-publishing—even before it was mainstream.

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3. Working with Illustrators for Children’s Books

[28:39–34:21]

• Finding Illustrators:

  • SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) Gallery: Professional and not behind a paywall.
  • Behance.net: A global Adobe-run creative portfolio platform.
  • Referrals: Ask other authors for recommendations.

  “Behance.net is one of my main ways to find professional illustrators. And then finally, referrals. Just talk to other people, ask them who they used, were they happy with the process, that kind of thing."
  — Darcy Pattison [29:19]

• Collaboration Process:

  • Give the full manuscript to the illustrator.
  • Let them create sketches first, then provide detailed feedback in a revision letter.
  • Be specific at the sketch stage, not after final artwork is created.

• Contracts & Copyright:

  • Always use contracts, specifying deliverables (usually 14 double-page spreads plus covers).
  • Clarify rights: flat fee for all rights or royalty payment.

  “Usually the contract will say that I need 14 double page spreads plus...for the cover and page 32...I always do contracts...you can do a flat fee where you take all rights, or you can negotiate a royalty payment. It’s all in the contract.”
  — Darcy Pattison [31:30–32:57]

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4. Quality, Printing, and Distribution

[34:21–40:56]

• Print On Demand (POD):

  • Ingram: For wide distribution, especially schools/libraries. Accepts the level of quality as a trade-off for economic flexibility.
  • KDP (Amazon): Upload separately for always-available Amazon listing.
  • Lulu: Used for the best print quality (coated paper), especially for Shopify store orders and large special runs.

  “We do print on demand because the economic issues make sense. We don't have to put a huge investment up front...I think it’s wise to be more nimble.”
  — Darcy Pattison [34:36]

• Offset Printing:
  Only for very large orders with enough lead time (e.g., 600-book event orders), or when absolute quality is non-negotiable.

• Pricing for Profit:

  • Don’t compete on price—compete on value and quality.
  • Charge enough for a reasonable profit margin, even if that means a higher price point than mainstream publishers.

  “You cannot compete on price. Absolutely. I can’t sell my picture books for $8.99. They are $11.99...and they sell.”
  — Darcy Pattison [37:23]

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5. Bulk Sales and Marketing to Schools & Libraries

[43:28–48:44]

• Bulk Sales Strategy:
  Focus on topics that fit existing school curricula, making the books a need for teachers.

  “Teachers don’t just like my book, they need my book to adequately teach sound to their students… If it fits the curriculum, then it’s more likely to be picked up for reading programs, for summer programs, for summer camps, that sort of thing.”
  — Darcy Pattison [43:47]

• Effective Outreach:

  • Speak at educator and librarian conferences (local, regional, national) rather than targeting individual parents.
  • Provide book talks at these industry events—these leaders are more consistent customers than parents, whose children age out of your target audience.

  “Parents are a moving target...But teachers and librarians always have those 8-year-olds coming through their system.”
  — Darcy Pattison [47:13]

• Nonfiction and STEM:
  Nonfiction STEM books are the “bread and butter” of Darcy’s business, more likely to yield large sales and group orders due to their curricular fit.

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6. Navigating Age Groups and Longevity as an Author

[48:44–50:57, 55:28–57:14]

• Writing for Age Groups:

  • Many enter children’s writing to create a book for their child’s current age, but commercial success requires consistent genre expertise and genuine passion.

  “Find a genre that you like and dive in...You have to know the genre.”
  — Darcy Pattison [50:21]

• Staying the Course:

  • Continue learning and remain curious.
  • Adapt to changes—both industry-related and creative.
  • Embrace mistakes as learning opportunities.

  “Curiosity is what keeps us going, to be honest. And I feel at this point that if there’s still books I want to write, then I’m just going to keep writing them."
  — Joanna Penn [56:51]

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7. Translation, Licensing, and Global Markets

[50:57–51:29]

• Experimented with self-publishing in Spanish (mixed results; marketing remains a challenge).
• Works with a foreign agent and has sold series rights to publishers in China and Korea.

“I do have an agent and they just sold a nine book series to a Chinese publisher, so we’ll see how that goes. And they have also sold a six book series to Korean.”
— Darcy Pattison [51:29]

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8. AI in Writing and Illustration

[51:53–55:13]

• AI Tools for Writers:

  • Google NotebookLM: Organizes research and creates annotated timelines with citations.
  • Claude: Helpful for outlining; used AI for book descriptions.
  • Joanna recommends Gemini Deep Research for low-hallucination, in-depth research tasks.

• AI & Illustration:

  • Adobe’s Firefly is available, but most illustrators are still doing original digital work; AI-generated art isn’t the norm yet.
  • Consistency in character illustrations (like unique eyes on a cat) still challenges AI image generators, though rapid development is ongoing.

  “I think that’s coming. I don’t think you can stop it and I think it will be lovely, but I just haven’t done it yet.”
  — Darcy Pattison [55:13]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Self publishing is a place of abundance for me. I do what I want. I find stories that excite me and I put them in the hands of kids.” — Darcy Pattison [25:03]
• “Picture books are a very tight art form. I sort of compare it to writing poetry...You have to set up a character, a problem, complicate the story, then resolve it in some satisfying way in less than 500 words while leaving room for the illustrator.” — Darcy Pattison [21:33]
• “We are not competing on price. We cannot compete on price or shipping...I’m not Amazon. And literally, people will then go, ‘oh, right, yeah, I understand.’” — Joanna Penn [38:16]
• “If there’s still books I want to write, then I’m just going to keep writing them.” — Joanna Penn [56:51]

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Key Timestamps for Selected Topics

• [21:13] The craft of writing children’s picture books
• [25:03] Why self-publish: creative freedom and abundance
• [28:39] Finding and working with illustrators
• [34:21] Printing, distribution, and quality considerations
• [43:28] Bulk sales and making books needed for school curriculum
• [45:35] Marketing to schools and libraries
• [50:57] Translations and foreign rights sales
• [51:53] Use of AI in research, writing, and illustration
• [55:28] Longevity tips and sustaining a creative writing career

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Where to Find Darcy Pattison and Resources

• Children’s Books: mimshousebooks.com
• Self-Publishing Blog: indykidsbooks.com
• Her latest book, "Publish," available via Kickstarter and for pre-order on Amazon.

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a goldmine for anyone considering writing, self-publishing, or marketing children’s books. Darcy shares practical advice from decades in the industry, blending creative inspiration and business acumen, while Joanna’s probing questions keep the focus relatable for authors at every stage. The episode demystifies the production process, highlights the importance of rights management, and encourages indie authors to pursue abundance—with an eye on profitability, professionalism, and joy.

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For full show notes and resources, visit thecreativepenn.com and connect with Joanna on your preferred platform.

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Creative Pen Podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, craft and creative business. You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots [e-mail] and that's Pen with a double N. And here's the show. Hello creatives, I'm Johanna Penn and this is episode number 828 of the podcast and it is Monday the 15th of September 2025. As I record this, yes, I'm recording this just before I put it out as I will explain why in a bit. So in today's show I'm talking to Darcy Patterson about writing, self publishing and marketing children's books. We discuss the particular challenge of writing for children and publishing, including board books and those ages finding and working with illustrators, copyright and revisions, printing and distribution options and the money side of things, including bulk sales, marketing to schools and lots more. So that's coming up in the interview section. So in writing and publishing things around this time of year, writers used to start thinking about NaNoWriMo national novel writing Month, which ran in November for many years and doesn't anymore. Many of us started writing that way, including me. So back in November 2009, I wrote the first 5,000 words of what eventually became Stone of Fire. Now I never timed my writing to coincide with NaNoWriMo again, but I always have fond memories of the process. It really helped me get over my block around writing fiction and in fact timed writing sessions really is my biggest recommendation for people in terms of writing a first draft. And that was the beginning of my my books as JF Penn so NaNoWriMo is gone, but ProWritingAid is picking up the baton for writers. This November, ProWritingAid is launching novel November, a month long challenge designed to help writers turn blank pages into finished drafts. The goal? Same as NaNoWriMo, write 50,000 words over the month, which is around 1,667 words per day. It is ambitious, but there will be an entire community writing alongside you with daily WR sprints, Q&As, craft webinars and community support. And it really can become a sort of group project. They have some really great people speaking, including Madeline Miller who wrote Circe and Tomi Adeyemi wrote Children of Blood and Bone and some other people. And they'll be joined by editors, writing coaches, other authors. So lots of things going on. You can register for free and be part of the online event prowritingaid.com novel-November or just go to prowriting writingaid.com and you'll probably find the pop up. So in terms of publishing things, I'm on the Self Publishing with Ally podcast with Orna Ross and we talk about some of the recent issues with UK publisher Unbound and Boundless and talk about managing cash flow as an author business. I wanted to talk about this, particularly with lots more people doing Kickstarters. Basically it was reported that funds that should have been spent on printing books and shipping pre orders were spent on operational things. And this kind of cash flow issue is a real problem for businesses, not just authors and publishing. So I think it's with Kickstarter, as you see, you get the money and then you need to spend that money on printing and shipping, not just on other things like rent or something like that. Obviously you have to factor in your profit margins and that is often where people can go wrong. So yeah, Orna and I talk about that. We also talk about the windowing strategy for releasing, which is what I've been doing, which is kind of Kickstarter first, then your store, then Wide or Ku or whatever. And we also discussed the salt path memoir controversy and where we need to draw the line as ethical authors. So you can find that on the Self Publishing with Ally podcast and in AI things. It is your last chance to join me this weekend, depending on when you're listening to this, but Sunday, 21st of September, 4pm UK 11am US Eastern it is my last AI webinar of 2025. If you register you can ATT live or get the replay in video and audio format along with the slides and my prompt library. And 99.9% of the webinar is everything you can do that is not writing a finished book with AI. So lots of things to share about using AI tools for creative processes and business processes, lots on marketing and all kinds of fun things. So yes, the tickets are thecreativepenn.com live for my final AI webinar of 2025. And then in personal news, the reason I'm recording just before this goes out is I've been exhausted. I am so tired. Yesterday I ended up spending the whole day in bed because Saturday I did a day at a metalworking workshop in Bristol and I've never done metalworking before. This was one of the things I do every year. I kind of pick something to push my comfort zone a bit and this was one of the things I pick this year and I made and the video and the pictures are on Instagram and Facebook Fpenauthor But I made a sugar skull and if you know me as J.F. penn, Sugar Skulls, which are the sort of a Mexican Day of the Dead skulls with the flowers and butterflies and they're sort of a beautiful, colourful representation of, of the dead. And I made a sugar skull with two layers of metal that create flower shapes on the skull when you hold it up to the light with detailing with metal washers and nail. Love it. But it was so much work and it was. Physically, I was just broken. So I did a drawing on paper and then plasma cutting. I really enjoyed the plasma cutting and there is a video of me on doing that. Then I did some welding, which I really, really struggled with and then some angle grinding, which I absolutely struggled with and my whole body was shaking and it was so noisy and by the end I was broken and exhausted. But it was also amazing and eye opening. And those of you who do physical work for your art or for your job or whatever, or for fun, know that it takes a lot of stamina. And so impressed with Felix and Ash, the ladies who were there. So it was WTF workshops in Bristol in England, the southwest of England. And that stands for Women Teaching Fabrication. So it was a female led workshop, metalwork workshop. And yeah, it was so interesting to do some new things. It felt very dangerous compared to what we do as authors. Like sitting in front of a screen typing. It's just so different. And a bit like my stone carving course last year, which I made a green man, which is in my garden, which I love. And I don't know where the skull's going to go, but it's going to go somewhere. And yeah, I have this renewed appreciation for people who work in this more manual way and who choose physical artistic pursuits and obviously doing it for a job is different, but these are artistic people choosing metal as a medium. And yeah, it's such a different experience to turning thoughts in my head into writing on a screen. I mean, it is very cool to turn a thought in my head into a piece of finished metal work. But yeah, I have never done any welding or metal work and it's. It's really just about pushing your comfort zone. And like many women and there was another woman in the workshop and some guys as well, and all the guys had done welding before and me and this other woman hadn't and that's quite common, I think, at school and you get pushed into different things and yeah, so anyway, it was fascinating. I really encourage you if you haven't.

[B]

Done metal work or you haven't done.

[A]

Stone Carving you haven't done whatever it is. And I. I might do clay or something a bit softer next time, but booking something where you're going to push your comfort zone, where you meet some different people. I always do these things on my own and you really get a different insight into how different work. So I'm really glad I did the day. If you are in the UK or around the Southwest. WTFworkshops.co.uk Women teaching fabrication and they do workshops all over the place and do Glastonbury and all that kind of thing. So yes, that was my weekend. And then yesterday. Oh, this is also the time of year when all the big books come out. So I'm just reading all the big books. And so yesterday I essentially stayed in bed all day and read the new Slough House novel Clown Town by Mick Heron. And if you haven't read the Slow Horses books, they're fantastic. Want to know about writing Character Voice Reid and Mick Heron. Just so good. And if you've watched the Apple TV series, they actually get it. The characters are very good. But I loved reading that, so that was my mad weekend. I hope you had a good one. So in other personal things, the Kickstarter closes today as this goes out, so it may already be closed for my short story collection, the Buried and the Drowned. And you know that when I did my first campaign a couple of years ago, I was super nervous and I just. I went really hard during the campaign and the whole thing was very tiring and now I feel pretty relaxed about the whole thing. I did more work in the pre launch, I think, and then haven't really done too much during the campaign. You can see my final [e-mail] buried I knew it would be my smallest campaign for a few reasons. One, it is a short story collection, not a massive genre in the first place. Just so you know, many of the stories have already been published anyway, so there are two new stories. But I know that many of my readers have read or listened to some of them, so I'm so grateful that I got to do this. I love the special hardback and it's the first time I've done patterns sprayed edges. The book is beautiful. I'll certainly be doing it again. So thank you to everyone who joined the campaign. I'm so thrilled to have done it, but I know that people are like, oh, well, your campaigns are just getting smaller. And I think it's because I'm really happy to do more and more creative work from my weird self instead of trying to aim for anything that is mainstream. I think this is just me and I know many of you feel the same. So I will be heading to Peterborough to sign the exclusive copies in a few weeks time. If you back the campaign, watch out for updates. And if you did back the campaign and you haven't heard from me, log into Kickstarter over the next few days because sometimes the Kickstarter emails have difficult deliverability. So this is true not just for my campaign but for anyone else's. So if you do back a Kickstarter, then make sure you fill in the survey in order to get your books. It is one of the most difficult things when running a Kickstarter is how many people don't fill in their details, which makes delivery difficult. So in other personal news, I have Blood Vintage back. If you remember, it's my folk novel I wrote last, my folk horror novel set in an English biodynamic vineyard and I am now publishing that myself. I spent most of this week finishing the audiobook with my voice clone. Oh, 11 Labs is so good and I loved going through the book again and directing my own voice is quite the experience.

[B]

But now I'm used to it.

[A]

I'm just so keen to use this again. 11 labs is better than it was earlier this year. And yeah, I mean you still have to listen to every line, change the timing, add emphasis, change pronunciation or intonation, sometimes rewriting to make things sound better. Which if it's your book is completely fine. And it is really important to remember this if you're doing an audiobook yourself, you are in control of the experience for the listener and sometimes what is absolutely fine in written text because a reader will skim over it and that's why it just doesn't make so much difference. But when you're listening, sounds take on obviously have a different resonance, have a different effect. So yeah, I think that we need to actively direct our audiobooks and fascinating process. You can get all the editions on my store right now, including that audiobook jfpen.com bloodvintage and if you back the Kickstarter, I've sent you the ebook and the audiobook through Kickstarter. So if you back that last year with the hardback, you've also got the digital ones now and I would love some reviews on Goodreads if you have read it. So available now on jfpenbooks.com coming 15th of October on the usual stores. So those will be available soon for Spooky Season that is Blood Vintage. My folk horror novel. So thanks for your emails and comments this week. Melissa said. What Another wonderful and informative interview with Kim Boo. The discussion about managing multiple brands and mailing lists really resonated with me. I write across three different genres science fiction, contemporary romance and crime noir, and each attracts very different audiences. Managing three newsletters was becoming overwhelming, so I switched to one. Now I include the featured genre in the subject line so readers know what to expect each week. That is a good way to do it. Fantastic. Nina said. The chat with Kim Boo York was so inspiring. I've been writing fanfiction since 2002 and I know exactly what she was talking about when she said, writers who have fun and write with ease and joy in fandom may freeze up, become anxious and stilted when writing original fiction. Even as I was still listening to the interview, my finger had already pressed by on Kim Boo's book. Thank you for including this beloved and entirely unmonetised genre in your podcast. And thank you Kimbu for boosting my hope and confidence. Oh, I loved getting that comment from Nina because when Kimboo pitched me with this fan fiction topic I was like, ah, I think I'm not sure I want to cover that on the podcast because it's really not something I know anything about and I'm not sure it fits, but it really did. I loved talking about it.

[B]

If you haven't listened to it, that.

[A]

Was last week or the week before, whatever. But yeah, Nina, thank you so much for that comment. And Don, funny. So Nina says entirely unmonetised. Don sent an email saying, I wonder whether an author could actually encourage fanfiction as a kind of marketing approach. It's possible that someone might stumble across a fanfiction story, enjoy it, and then go looking for the original books. In doing a little digging, I found examples of authors, publishers, and even businesses experimenting with fanfiction as a tool for audience building or brand engagement. But it's far from common and usually quite informal. More so, yes. Makes me wonder if there's a place for authors to think more deliberately about it. I definitely think that I would be the wrong person to comment on that, but Kim Boo for sure I will have some thoughts. So please leave a comment on the podcast show [e-mail] or on the YouTube channel. You can email me, send me pictures of where you're listening joannathecreativepenn.com and of course send me pictures of your favorite churches or graveyards cemeteries. I love them and it makes this more of a conversation when I hear from you. So this episode is sponsored by ProWritingAid, who along with Novel November, also have awesome editing software. However you choose to publish, whether you go indie or you want a traditional deal, you need to make your book the best it can be. ProWritingAid is one of my absolute must use tools in my writing process for both fiction and nonfiction as well as short story. Once I finish my first draft, I use prowritingaid to fix up any issues before printing and hand editing. Then I use it again after I put the edits into Scrivener, since I always make more mistakes and I do at least two passes with ProWritingAid before sending to Kristen, my human editor. I use ProWritingAid with Scrivener, but it works with loads of other software or just online in your browser. ProWritingAid knows all the rules of editing and helps you apply them. And of course you can choose not to make changes as you like. Like it helps with making your writing more active. Finding repeated words, finding words and sentences you could improve, adding sensory detail, sentence structure, grammar and punctuation, as well as typos spacing problems which it's amazing how many spaces you know you've pressed like too many spaces. It finds those two and more. Now you don't have to accept all the changes, of course, but it will help you find problems. There is also now a manuscript analysis, developmental editing report and a beta reader report so you can get an editorial analysis of your whole manuscript. So why use software? Why don't you just learn all the grammar and writing rules and apply them yourself? Well, we all use tools to improve our process and we're often blind to our own writing issues. It helps to have another pair of eyes, even if the eyes are software. So yes, a human editor can do this, but I'd rather pay my editor to fix the things the software can't. So I use prowritingaid as my essential editing tool before working with my human editor, Kristen. Check out the free edition or get 15% off the premium edition by using my link prowritingaid.com Joanna J-O-A-N-N-A that's prowritingaid.com Joanna so this type of corporate sponsorship pays for the hosting, transcription and editing, but my time in creating the show is sponsored by my [e-mail] thecreativepenny thanks to the 23 new patrons who've joined in the last week, which is amazing and thanks to everyone who's been supporting for months and years. And of course you can always join and go back out again. You don't have to join forever. If you join the community you get access to all my backlist videos and audio covering writing, craft, author, business and tutorials on AI tools. Last week I shared how to use Gemini Nano Banana for book covers and also product photography with your book into different places and layouts and also shared my 14 years author entrepreneur post early which will be coming this week on the blog. The Patreon is a monthly subscription, the equivalent of buying me a black coffee a month or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous. So if you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at patreon.com P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com TheCreativePen Right. Alright, let's get into the interview.

[B]

Darcy Patterson is the multi award winning best selling author of more than 70 fiction and non fiction books for children across multiple age groups. Her book for authors is Find Surprising Success Self Publishing your Children's book.

[A]

So welcome to the show Darcy.

[C]

Oh I'm so excited to be here today. Thank you.

[B]

Oh yeah, this is such a great topic. But first up, tell us a bit more about year and how you got into writing and publishing.

[C]

Well, I have four children and I found myself reading books to them and at some point I wanted to be on the flip side of that where I wrote the books that were read to kids. So I started writing. It took a long time for me to learn the craft of writing children's books. You know, it's very different than especially picture books are very different than just a novel. So it took me a while but I finally got an offer on a picture book and I have eight traditionally published books. And then at some point I decided that it was better for me to bring books to market myself. We'll probably talk about that more. But I'm actually a hybrid at this point. I do some pop up books with a small Christian press so I'm designing the pop ups. But I do a lot of nonfiction stem books for kids, but I also do several novel series.

[B]

Well I think that's really interesting. First up, you said that the craft of writing children's is different, picture books in particular. So just tell us more about that the craft site. I feel like often people say oh well you know, it's only a few thousand words. It must be super super easy compared to writing a lot more words. So tell us about the craft site.

[C]

Yes, I do teach writing picture books all the time for the highlights foundation and other places. Picture books are a very tight art form. I sort of compare it to writing poetry. There are 32 pages in that you have a title page, a half title page, a copyright page. It turns out you have about 14 double page spreads. And in that 14 double page spreads you have to set up a character, a problem, you have to complicate the story, then you resolve it in some satisfying way in less than 500 words while leaving room for the illustrator to do their job job. So it's a very demanding process.

[B]

And is that the same now then? Because like you say there the 32 pages and all of this, I mean this is a very print heavy issue, I guess. But there's plenty, I guess of things now that might be on tablets. So is that shifted at all or is it still a real print heavy world?

[C]

It still is a print heavy world for the children's books. Most people who independently publish will tell you that 90% of their sales are paperback. But yes, it still is 32 pages. I can do 27 pages, I can do 36 pages. But the problem is if I ever need to offset print, and I've needed to several times when I have a large order, then it's cheaper if it's 32 pages because they figured out how to print 32 pages on one piece of paper. If I go to 37 pages it's two pieces of paper more expensive. And if I do 25 pages, you're wasting paper. So really the 32 pages is there because the requirements of print. Absolutely. But I still go with that because children's books still, by and large, even for independent people like me, is a paperback or hardcover.

[B]

And then I guess talking there a 32 page picture book, that's not the only thing is there for children. So what is the range of books for children?

[C]

Yes, so you can do board books. That's for the very young children. Those are hard for self publishers to do because there's no one who does a print on demand for that you have to do offset printing. So those are more difficult. So then Starting about age 4 to 8 is picture book world. That's the young readers where the parents are reading to the kid. And then the ages are very fluid here because some kids read faster than others. But so maybe about six or seven years old they're starting to read more independently. They want these short chapter books. So Those might be 48 pages or 60 page short novels where you're really paying attention. That's the only place where you really have to Pay attention to the vocabulary levels for kids. And then after that you have the middle grade. And that would run 8 to 12 years old, roughly. And then the ya would be. Again, the definitions are very fluid, but maybe 14 and a half up would be a young adult or a YA.

[B]

Yeah. And that YA category now I feel like it's moved very adult. So I think that can probably be quite fluid as well, depending, I guess, on. Yeah. What you find in the store. Okay, well, let's just coming back to your. I mean, you mentioned the hybrid. You did eight traditionally published books, but in your book called Publish, you said deciding to self publish was a way to avoid creative death, which I thought was a brilliant line, but I thought maybe, maybe you could expand on that and why self publishing is a great choice.

[C]

Self publishing is a very great choice. There was a time period when I had sold eight books. I teach on a very high level. I teach a novel revision retreat to come. You must bring a full draft of a novel. We talk about how to revise that novel. One lady came to my retreat. She revised her novel, sent it out for submission. It sold in 11 days flat and went on to win one of the major awards in children's literature in America, the Newbery Honor book. It wasn't the Newbery, but it was the Newbery Honor. So I know what I'm doing, I know how to write. And yet I could not sell anything. And it was so discouraging at that point, I either decided I would quit, I didn't know what I was going to do, but I was going to quit, or I had to just figure out how to bring books to market myself. So I decided, yes, I can do this. I can bring books to market myself. So I worked. I worked for five years. I just put my head down and worked. I published books that I liked. I did what no one else would accept, but I thought was good writing. I looked for great illustrators, and I found some great illustrators to work with, because children's picture books have pictures. You have to work with an illustrator. So I worked for about five years, and finally after five years, I kind of lifted my head and looked around and went, wow, look at this. I've got books out that I love. They're winning awards, they're selling. I'm making money. This works. So for me, one person asked me recently to talk about in terms of scarcity and abundance, for me, the traditional publishing world is a place of scarcity. Nobody respected my opinion. Nobody respected my writing. As we know from Scheherazade if you do not have a story, you die. But self publishing is a place of abundance for me. I do what I want. I find stories that excite me and I put them in the hands of kids.

[B]

Well, so what year was it when you were like, oh, I really can't sell. I'm gonna try indie.

[C]

13 years ago. I've been doing this 13 years.

[B]

Yeah, so around 2012, I guess.

[C]

Yeah, 2013, I think.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, 2012. 2013. And that really was, I think, a real takeoff time in the sort of self publishing arena when you could actually start doing this. And for example, doing print on demand through Amazon, for example, you know. Yes, these things weren't that easy. I guess when you started in traditional publishing it wasn't easy to do self publishing.

[C]

When I first started submitting books, the self publishing was not available. But I did a book on writing very early and that taught me me how to do the self publishing process. It was not a book anyone was going to publish because it was revising your novel, which is very niche for people who want to write a novel that's a fairly big market. But those who finish the novel and want to revise it, it's even a smaller market. So I self published that book. And that taught me so much about how to set up your files, how to set up the accounts on everything on KDP and everywhere else.

[B]

Yeah, I do feel like so often actually just doing one, whether it's a. It might be a short story or just something, but actually just going through the process gets rid of a lot of the difficulty with it. Okay, so let's come back to, I guess some of the things you have to do. So you mentioned illustrators there, particularly for the picture books. I guess as you said, illustrators are important, but it also might be cover design. So what are your tips for finding and working with illustrators?

[C]

Yes, this is a long topic. It can be, but basically I find illustrators through a couple sources. One is the scbwi.org that's the society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, the only professional organization for people who write for children. And they have a gallery that's available to their illustrators and it's not behind a paywall. You can just go look at it and I look at that. But I also look, most illustrators use the Adobe suite of programs. There are other programs, but they learn on that one at least. And Adobe has a social media platform for illustrators called behance.net B E H A N C E.net Illustrators from around the world put their portfolios there, and I find people there all the time. My family has hosted exchange students eight times, so I'm familiar with working with internationals. I'm not afraid of that. And I've had illustrators from Columbia, Ukraine, Poland, Canada. So I don't mind finding an international illustrator to work on my projects, and I work well with them. So behance.net is one of my main ways to find professional illustrators. And then finally, referrals. Just talk to other people, ask them who they used, were they happy with the process, that kind of thing.

[B]

And then what do you give them? Do you give them like the story, the text, or how do you actually work with an illustrator?

[C]

Good question. Everybody wants to know, can I write those notes to the illustrator and tell them that this character must have red hair and white boots? And I. Of course you can do that. If you're self publishing, you are the art director and you are in charge. But I prefer not to do that. I prefer to pick out an illustrator that I think has professional skills and an imagination of their own. So I give them my story, then they give me sketches. And when they give me sketches, then I'm very picky about the sketches. For example, you cannot, in a picture book have every page the same, so it can't always be in the cafeteria. It must move from place to place. You must make sure the character looks consistent from page to page. There's a long list of things I go through to make sure that the illustrations are right at that point. So when I get the sketches, they get a long letter and I want a revision of their sketches.

[B]

Right. So you. But you've given them the whole story up front, then they've given you the sketches, then you've gone back with a letter and I guess how many revisions are you looking for in that process? And is this all set out in a contract up front?

[C]

Yes, I always do contracts, make sure that everything's understood. Usually the contract will say that I need 14 double page spreads plus a spread for the COVID and a spread for the page 32. So I'm asking for about 15 to 16 illustrations.

[B]

And.

[C]

Within that, then they must tell the story. They get the manuscript. I try not to give them too many directions on. On where it goes and just see where they, where they take it. Usually they're much better than I am.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. We all have different gifts, right, and different interests and different skills. And your skill is in writing, as is mine. So yeah, that's what, what we do. Yeah.

[C]

I found I'm actually a pretty good art director though. I really have a vision for what this should look like in a picture book. So I know how the story has to flow. Well, the pacing is in the pictures also. So you have to think of all the things you would in a novel like pacing, characterization, and that comes through in the story. So I have to make sure all of that is right in the sketches. Because once the sketches are approved, then it's not fair to ask them to change. You cannot do those last minute changes and go, oh, I want those white boots. No, no, no, that's not fair to the illustrator.

[B]

Yes. You're treating them like a professional. What about copyright assignment? Are you getting that in the contract?

[C]

Yes, everything's in the contract. Yes. And there are, there are different ways to do it. You can do a flat fee where you take all rights, or you can negotiate a royalty payment. It's all in the contract.

[B]

And if people want templates for those.

[C]

Kind of contracts, that's the difficulty, isn't it? Because I'm not a lawyer, I don't give them templates. But there are reasonable literary lawyers. I'm glad to give them referrals to some literary lawyers who can do it. And usually they have pretty much a boilerplate. And for less than $500 US you can get a template that you can use multiple times.

[B]

There are also author organizations that have these kind of templates. But the most important thing here is you need to sort that out up front. And some of the ones I've seen, they do also things like you can have one revision on this type of level or whatever. And it's the same with covers. Right. If you're doing older children's books, we're respecting other people's time and professionalism.

[C]

Yes, absolutely. Yes. And you know, you may want one or maybe two or three revisions at that sketches stage, but after that, when they give me final art, there's almost no changes because we've hashed that out early. And that's where they want you to is in the sketches stage, because that's where they can make the changes the easiest.

[B]

Yeah. Okay. So another challenge, I guess is quality color printing, because as you said, most of your sales are going to be in print. So talk about a bit about printing and distribution and how you manage that.

[C]

So I use three print on demand printers. I use Ingram because that reaches the, the wide distribution that I need that goes to the school and library and the education distributors and goes out in the world internationally also. So Ingram's quality is what Ingram's quality is. I think if we go into this and say we're going to print on demand, we need to accept what they do. I mean people complain about everybody. Every printer gets complaints. But I think they all do a reasonable job. They correct mistakes when they're made. I think they do fine. So Ingram's print quality is good. It's not offset printing, it will never be offset printing. But we do print on demand because the economic issues make sense. We don't have to put a huge investment up front of ordering 10,000 books. Then your money is tied up in that inventory and you can't recoup and you can't move on to the next book until you sell those books. I don't think that's wise for self publishers. I think it's wise to be more nimble. So then the print on demand makes a lot of sense. Then the second one I use is KDP because I find that Ingram and KDP don't always work well together. And so I just go ahead and upload it to KDP and it's always available on Amazon, it's never a problem. And then the final one is I use Lulu and I love Lulu's quality. Talk about great looking books. They have a coated paper, 80 pound coated paper that accepts the ink really well. So the books just look much nicer from them. I use them for the back end of my shopify store and then anytime I have special orders. So last year my book magnet came out and I got an order of 600 books that would be used for a public television station that was having an event. So they wanted 600 books to give page people and they ordered that. And yes, Lulu is where I print anything like that because the quality is just so much better.

[B]

So then with that example, this, the 600 books, I mean one of the reasons, as you said, we do print on demand because we it does, it means we don't have to pay for those print runs. But also we do make less profit because, because there's higher price per book. So how do you manage the, the profit side of it with such high PR costs when the price of books just hasn't really gone up with inflation, people still expect to pay the same thing. And like with those 600, how did you make a fair profit there?

[C]

Yes, absolutely. So I price my books high. You cannot compete on price. Absolutely. I can't sell my picture books for $8.99. They are $11, 99 cents for eight and a half. By eight and a half. Full color, 32 page picture book. $11.99 is outrageous. But that's what I have to charge. And they sell, what can I say? They sell plus.

[B]

Plus shipping with your Shopify store.

[C]

Yes, but I charge them shipping. So, yeah, so then you negotiate prices and you just make sure you're making a profit of two or three dollars a book just like anybody else. It's, you know, people fight against that too. They go, well, I need my, my little chapter book just to be 6.99. And I go, well, you can't, can't. You can't make a pro. You must think as a business person and you must price at that and then write a really great book that they will buy anyway.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, this is the whole point. We are not competing on price. We cannot compete on price or shipping. Like people say to me, oh, well, but if I order from your Shopify store, it's gonna take like two weeks or something. And I'm like, yeah, because I'm a small business. My print is a small business. It gets printed, it gets sent. I mean, I'm not Amazon. And literally, people will then go, oh, right, yeah, I understand, don't they? I mean, it's not. Once you explain it, people understand.

[C]

So if I have a large order, like 600 bucks, if I have three months to deliver, then I'll do an offset run. But I don't always have that luxury of having three months to deliver. They usually want it in two weeks. And then Lulu can deliver. Lulu always delivers well.

[B]

Right, okay. So I guess, I mean, you sort of address this a bit with saying, look, the quality is the quality. But I do find children's authors in particular can be a little bit precious about this. And they're like, oh, no, this, it has to be like this. It has to be perfect. And then so I have to use offset printing. But given that you have more than 70 books, I just can't see how it's practical to have a business with so many different books and insist on incredible quality every time.

[C]

I can't, I can't make a profit that way. I can't have a stock of even 500 books of 70. No, I can't.

[B]

I can't even physically like a physical warehouse, let alone the price.

[C]

Yes. I can't tie up my money that way. So for me, print on demand is the only way that works. I cannot do the offset printing again, I do offset printing if I have a large order, printers And I have plenty of time, but that's the only time I can get that kind of quality. And yeah, it is, it is different. But there are printers now who are approaching offset quality with print on demand. The newer printers that are coming out are very, very good.

[B]

They are, they are. But again, we have to look at the pricing there because the price is also higher. You know what the quality of the paper and the ink and all that. Yeah, I think that's really. And of course the same is true for anyone. I mean like for me with like 45 plus books, I, I don't, I never have kept stock. But you just don't know, you don't know which books people are going to buy on any given day. So having print on demand just makes sense. And I think people who are just starting out, they're like, oh, well, it's only one book. It's like, well, soon it won't just be one book.

[C]

Well, we hope it's not just going to be one book. I mean, I want a career. I don't want just a single book out there.

[B]

Then I guess just circling back on the. Well, anything that's different because of course you do non fiction books for children as well as fiction. Is the process just exactly the same. But you don't have a story necessarily. It's more like facts and things.

[C]

Most of mine are narrative nonfiction. So I'm usually telling the story of a scientist making some kind of discovery or an animal. And usually it's not a species, usually it's a particular animal that's done something amazing. For example, Nefertiti, the spider knot is the true story of a spider that went to the International Space Station. The question there was, she's a jumping spider. She doesn't spin webs, she jumps to hunt. And the question was, could she jump in space? Because if you jump, you float away. So would she starve to death or would she adapt somehow to that microgravity of the International Space Station? And she did indeed adapt. And she learned to hunt in space and lived long enough to come back to Earth.

[A]

What did she eat?

[C]

Well, they had fruit flies, so they had a little habitat she lived in and they raised fruit flies for her. They raised fruit flies.

[B]

Oh, okay. She wasn't a stowaway. She was.

[C]

No, no, no, no. It was a deliberate.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Deliberate, yeah. Experiment on the International Space Station.

[B]

That's really cool. So how did you decide to do that book? Was that a commission or is that just something you're interested?

[C]

No, I heard something on the radio. And then what I like to do is to do original primary research. So I contacted the scientist who's in charge of all of the live animal experiments on the International Space Station. She lived in Colorado, and my daughter lives close. So we went to see my daughter and I set up an appointment, interviewed her, and wrote the book.

[B]

I love that because like you said, I mean, this is creativity, isn't it, really? It's kind of hearing something, making it. And. And so does that book sell or is that just something that you did and it's just a passion project?

[C]

No, no, it sells really well. The COVID either repulses people because it's a very close up of the face of the spider. So they either hate the COVID or.

[B]

They love the COVID They love it. Yeah.

[C]

But for example, I had a school right, when Covid hit kit that ordered 1,400 copies because they wanted to give one copy to each of their fourth graders to read during the summer.

[B]

Wow, that's great. So that is.

[C]

And that one has licensed other things also, like for reading programs and things. Yeah.

[B]

Well, let's talk about that then. Because bulk sales to schools is something that children's authors often can do very, very well that the rest of us struggle with. So tell us a bit about that and how people can think about things like bulk sales, which is as you. When you sell that many books at once.

[C]

Yes, that's profitable. So bulk sales come and go. You can't necessarily predict them. But what I do is I really pay attention to the science curriculum. I make sure that each book I write and produce fits the curriculum some way. So I like to say that teachers don't just like my book. They need my book to adequately teach sound to their students. So my book Clang is about a German scientist that went to Napoleon's court, entertained Napoleon with his sound experiments, kind of like Bill Nye the Science guy does. Entertaining entertained him, and then Napoleon funded his work. So in the book, there's everything you need to know about sound. How its sound waves are produced, vibrating strings, vibrating air, columns, all of that. But it's a great story about this scientist who goes to Napoleon's court. So I think teachers need my book to keep kids interested in that topic. So if it fits the curriculum, then it's more likely to be picked up for reading programs, for summer programs, for summer camps, that sort of thing. And so my book on AI about the story about Lisa doll playing against Alphago, that sold just suddenly I get on Ingram. It sold a thousand copies and I'm sure it was for a summer camp.

[B]

Yeah, that one's. We're going to circle back to AI, but let's, well, let's just come on to marketing because I'm sure people listening going, yeah, well I want to do that. How do I sell all of those books? So how are you getting your information into schools? I mean, obviously you're in the usa, it's a massive country. So how are you doing that marketing to schools in particular and libraries, I guess.

[C]

Well, everybody says go do school visits. Yes, yes, yes, you can do school visits and you can make money that way. But I prefer to try other avenues because school visits are limited to the length of school year. You might have 150 days possible and I'm not going to go out for 150 days doing school visits. So instead what I do is reach out to organizations in the United States. Well, just this morning month I've been to the Arkansas association of Instructional Media, that's the school librarians. And at their conference I had audience of 60 or 70 people and I book talked my 20 STEM books. And then the next week there was a leadership conference for the Arkansas Literacy association and they brought in leaders from the local councils around the state, 20 councils. So there was about 60 or 70 people. Again, these are the leaders, the opinion makers in their region. And they did a build your stack. So they bought 90 books and each person got a free copy of the book courtesy of the organization. So what you have to do is find those sorts of organizations in your area, in your state, your region and go, you know, say, can I, can I fill out applications to speak at their conferences? Those are for me, that's the audience, not parents. Parents are a moving target because if their child is 7 years old this year, next year they're going to be 8 and pretty soon they're going to be 14. And they've aged out of my books. But teachers and librarians always have those 8 year old kids coming through their system.

[B]

Yeah, I think that's super smart and super scalable as you say. I mean some people really love going into the schools and they love teaching at that level or whatever. But yeah, I think that's a really interesting.

[C]

Not scalable though.

[B]

No, it's not. I feel like there's other revenue. Like some people talk about getting paid for that speaking. Yes, basically paid for doing assemblies and stuff like that. But as you say, yours is a sort of more scalable approach. So is that the same way you hit librarians as well?

[C]

Yes, yes. I'll be going to the Arkansas Library association conference in October. So that's just local. And then I also reach out to national organizations. I've spoken at the National Science Teachers association conferences, just went to the American Library association conference. So there are many of those regional and national organizations that focus on kids and kids reading that are my target.

[B]

And so those STEM books you mentioned, have you really done a lot more of those? Because those are the types of books that those markets want.

[C]

Yes, those sell really well. If I find a topic that's not been covered well with other books, I'm looking at competition, then I can write a book that, that does pretty well. And then I still write the fiction that I like, and some of those do well and some of those don't do well. But the Bread and Butter is probably my STEM books. Yes.

[B]

Yeah. Because they, as you say, they'd be a lot easier to sell if that's a topic that is, that is covered at that age group. And then just, I guess a sort of broader question about age groups. You mentioned you have four children. And I often meet people and they want to write a kids book. And it's often they're writing a kid's book for the age that their child is, and then sometimes they. Well, most often they kind of grow.

[A]

Out of the idea because their kid.

[B]

Is now a lot older than they were and they've changed their mind about the book or it was the wrong kind of age now. So, I mean, obviously your kids are presumably grown.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

So what advice would you have for people listening who feel like, oh, yeah, I want to write a book for my kid, but are wondering how that turns into a business.

[C]

So Katherine Patterson is a well known children's book author. She wrote Bridge to Terabithia, which was a popular movie about 10 or 15 years ago. And she once said that when she reads a novel, an adult novel, she hears an orchestra, but when she reads her own work, she hears a flute solo. I just write flute solos. I don't write the big complicated orchestral pieces. It's just not the way I write. So you just need to find what's your strength and what's your passion. I like children's literature. I read it all the time. I'm reading picture books, novels I'm reading all the time. I just like the genre. So find a genre that you like and, and dive in.

[B]

Right. So you can keep writing for an age group. If you keep reading in the age group, even if your kids have grown.

[C]

Yes, absolutely. Yes.

[B]

Yeah, that Makes sense. I mean you have to know, you have to know the genre. And of course tastes change as well. I mean, even since you started in like 2012, I guess there's a lot more diversity now in, in children's books and that's, yeah, an important development. And, and also, I guess translations. You've moved into translations and licensing. So how's that worked in terms of the business translations?

[C]

I did a test last year of five Spanish books. They've not sold particularly well. I need to find new ways to market them, but it was an experiment and I need to find new ways to market them, frankly. However, I do have an agent in and they just sold nine book series to a Chinese publisher, so we'll see how that goes. And they have also sold a six book series to Korean. So working with a foreign agent has worked for me.

[B]

Yeah, I've sold into South Korea as well. They clearly have a interesting book culture. Yeah. Okay. And then just coming back on the AI side because you mentioned your children's book about AlphaGo beating Lisa Doll in 2016 as part of your movie Moments in Science series. So I wondered, how are you using AI tools as part of your creative and business processes?

[C]

Well, I do use AI sometimes. So I love Google NotebookLM for research. I think the. The AIs hallucinate too much to let them do my research. But when I do the research myself and I find research reports, I drag them into a notebook link and then I can do things. For example, my new book out this year is Not Extinct. It's about the Przewalski horse, commonly called the peahorse, which in the 1960s was considered extinct in the wild and they have worked for decades to bring them back. Now there's about 3,000 in the world. So the story is about that process of conservation of the species. So I found tons of research reports and I drag them into NotebookLM and then I ask it to give me a timeline and it can go through all and it annotates the timeline for me. It says this came from this report so that I know that it's documented really well and I can trust that the research is there. I really like that one. But once we get away from can it do real research and deal with facts? I do use it sometimes for outlining. I like Claude better than some of the other platforms and I do use it for book description sometimes.

[B]

I would say that Gemini Deep Research is I think the best in terms of the. Have you used any of the Deep research?

[C]

I have not, no.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So Gemini, Deep research, I would say, is, is extremely good and has a very, very low, low hallucination rate. So that would be the one I would suggest for research people. But like you mentioned earlier that many of the illustrators use Adobe tools. And of course Adobe has Firefly. It has generative AI now. So how much a generative AI is being used in the, in the illustrator's work? Or is that not even something you worry about?

[C]

So far it's not been used very much. Most of the illustrators, I see their sketches at first and then they generally do digital work, but it's clearly their work. There's no question on most of them so far that will come up, I'm sure in the next five or 10 years, but so far it's not been an issue.

[B]

So it's not something you're embracing because like you said, you know what you want. So you could be doing this yourself, for example.

[C]

Yes. So I have one story, the Kitty Tuber series. It's about cats who make videos. And so they're kitty tubers. And the main illustrator, the main character is angel and she has one blue eye and one copper eye. I can't tell you how hard it is for ChatGPT to do a cat that has different colored eyes. It's just almost impossible. Finally, I think last week I tried it and it finally is getting to where it can do it, but it's. That's a difficult task. It's the, the programs just aren't there yet.

[B]

Again, I would suggest Mid Journey, which is, which is excellent and I know quite a lot of people doing kids books on Mid Journey and you can do consistent characters now. And so I think there's a lot of potential and certainly for marketing, if. Yes, even if you don't want to use it for actual creation of the.

[C]

Books, I think that's coming. I don't think you can stop it and I think it will be lovely, but I just haven't done it yet.

[B]

No, absolutely. Well, you've got your processes for sure. And I did want to ask you because we were saying before we started recording, we've kind of known each other.

[A]

Online for a really long time now.

[B]

And you have managed this career now for a long time. So what are your tips for longevity, both, I guess, in terms of the business and the mindset and just staying the course? Because both of us have seen a lot of people leave the industry in the time we've been doing doing it.

[C]

A lot of people do leave. And I'm sad when that happens because that was my impetus for doing this, is to stay in the business. I think that's one of the reasons I wrote this new book, Publish. I made the mistake so other people don't have to. I think staying in the business just means that you stay excited about your work. You find things that you want to write about and you're passionate about. I mean, why do we write in all. Because there's some question that we want to answer or there's some bit of information we want to pass on to kids. I think you have to keep finding that center and just stay really positive, keep up with the industry. Don't think that it can be run the same way all the time for business. I am not a very good business woman. I started with no information. I've never taken even an accounting class. So accounting just killed me at first. It's really hard for me to do the business, but I think you just have to keep pushing and trying. So I'm very curious, and I research and solve problems.

[B]

Yeah. I think that curiosity is what keeps us going, to be honest. And I feel at this point that if there's still books I want to write, then I'm just going to keep writing them.

[C]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[B]

And yes, we both run businesses, but there are lots of better ways to make money than writing books, especially children's books.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Which is fascinating, but. Okay, so tell us. You have a Kickstarter running right now. Tell us about that and a bit more about the book.

[C]

So Publish is a book about self publishing children's books and making a success at it. And I did make all the mistakes, so you don't have to. I've been doing a blog called indykidsbooks.com for three years and writing things on there that I thought would eventually wind up in the book. Mostly they're about what I'm working on right now, what I'm worried about, what the current state of publishing is like. So it's a great resource for you. But I wanted to put things together in a book that would explain the process for people who don't do this. I mean, who just come to it with curiosity and go, can I? Can I do this? It's not easy. Self publishing is never easy. You have to do everything from the creative to the accounting. It's not easy, but, oh, my gosh, it's. And I want people to get that. I want them to understand that it's not a horrible thing. It's not being put in the ghetto. I submit my books to awards and I win awards and I make money. You can do that too.

[B]

Fantastic. So where can people find you and your books Online?

[C]

So the best place to find my books is mimshousebooks.com m I m s h o u s ebooks.com and if you're interested in self publishing any indikidsbooks.com is where I kind of chronicle my journey. So you can find the published book on Kickstarter right now. It will be live when this recording goes out and it will be also available for pre order on Amazon. But look for the Kickstarter. I think you'll find a lot of things on there that are interesting.

[B]

Brilliant. Thanks so much for your time Darcy.

[A]

That was great. Great.

[C]

Oh thank you so much.

[A]

So I hope you found the discussion with Darcy interesting. Whether you write children's books or if you just wanted some new ideas around writing, publishing, book marketing and author business, let me know what you think. Please leave a comment on the podcast Show Notes at the creative pen.com or on the YouTube channel, or email me joannathecreativepenn.com Send me pictures of where you're listening or your favorite cemetery or church yard next Monday. I'm talking about Procrastination with Colleen M. Story and I was skeptical about doing this as a whole topic. I didn't think it was big enough. But we cover a lot of interesting mindset things so you will definitely find it useful. In the meantime, happy writing and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening today. I hope you found it helpful. You can find the backlist and episodes and show [e-mail] podcast and you can get your free author [e-mail] blueprint if you'd like to connect, you can find me on Facebook and X at the Creative Pen or on Instagram and Facebook. Fpenauthor Happy writing and I'll see you next time.