Latest / Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors Podcast / From Classroom to Author: Teaching Kids Empathy, Diversity & Acceptance Through Storytelling

Transcript

From Classroom to Author: Teaching Kids Empathy, Diversity & Acceptance Through Storytelling · Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors Podcast

• 2:49
  Hi, my name's Kevin Kripe, and I'm an author of three books.
• 2:54
  Trilogy of books called the Child Moral Development Trilogy, the Good War, the Little Boy who Cried Hoax, and Princess Max Conquers the World.
• 3:03
  And I'm excited to be here and talk about it.
• 3:06
  Thanks, Kevin, for appearing on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors podcast.
• 3:11
  Kevin has said he's written a trilogy of children's books, and today we're going to focus in on Princess Max Conquers the World.
• 3:19
  And I look forward to our conversation.
• 3:22
  Kevin, before we get into the details of your book, can you tell us what being a children's book author means to you?
• 3:29
  I was a teacher for 27 years, and my favorite part of the day was pretty much after lunch.
• 3:37
  We'd come in and I'd read children a story.
• 3:40
  And over the years, I got there were stories that I liked a lot, so I knew they were going to be regulars every year that I was going to read.
• 3:47
  But then it's finding a new story.
• 3:49
  There's a book called the Bear and the Piano by David Litchfield.
• 3:53
  And I remember reading it for the first time, and I'd been a teacher for 20 years.
• 3:56
  At that point.
• 3:57
  I went, this is an amazing book, everyone.
• 3:59
  And it's not that it's just a simple book.
• 4:02
  It's really kind of complex, but illustrated book for children that you would have fun reading to a child.
• 4:08
  And I went, there's a joy of reading to children.
• 4:12
  And so when I retired and I was sitting around in Boetti Panama during COVID and I thought I could write some books, and then I'm not going to illustrate them myself, but I could get them illustrated and see
• 4:25
  what happens.
• 4:26
  And there's a bunch of things that happen between now and then that's been a few years ago, but I've at this point moved to San Antonio from where I was in Central America and said, let's just pursue and
• 4:36
  see what happens.
• 4:37
  So it was really the reading of books to children and watching their eyes light up and go, oh, yeah, that's cool.
• 4:44
  And finding good stories that I liked.
• 4:46
  And so I wanted to try to write good stories.
• 4:49
  Fantastic.
• 4:50
  You have a trilogy.
• 4:51
  Talk to us a little bit about the inspiration behind your books.
• 4:56
  Okay.
• 4:57
  One of the books, the first book that got written was called Little Boy who Cried Wolf, the Complete Story.
• 5:03
  And it's this sort of dark political allegory because I was stuck in Covid watching Politics from the US On.
• 5:11
  I was like, oh, okay.
• 5:13
  How would I put this in A children's book, and it turns out it is dark, doesn't have a happy ending.
• 5:18
  It's about what happens when you have leaders who are just manipulators and fear mongers and greedy.
• 5:24
  But I wrote it and I had a lot of fun writing it and I had fun getting it illustrated and I really like it.
• 5:30
  But I had people who agree with me on a lot of things just go, that's dark.
• 5:35
  So then there was a story.
• 5:36
  It just.
• 5:36
  I don't know where it came from, the Good War, because I have three adopted children from Guatemala.
• 5:42
  And I, as a white man, have grown up in a certain amount of stuff in this world that I was never aware of.
• 5:49
  But watching my children go through things that I never experienced.
• 5:54
  And when they were with me, as they were treated one way and when they weren't, they get treated another way sometimes.
• 5:59
  And so I wanted to write a book about race and that perception of race.
• 6:02
  So the Good War deals with some themes of race.
• 6:06
  But then I also had a daughter come out.
• 6:08
  I have three adopted children from Guatemala and my youngest daughter came out as bisexual when she was 13.
• 6:16
  Her friends were predominantly were gay and bisexual children of hardcore gangsters, people who are generationally incarcerated people and their children.
• 6:27
  And so it's an interesting group of people to meet.
• 6:29
  I love my daughter, I love both my sons.
• 6:32
  And so just meeting them.
• 6:33
  And then when I was teaching chess in Boquete, Panama, at the library there, which is this really great library in Central America, big, it's a beautiful library.
• 6:43
  I had nine Panamanian students in my room.
• 6:46
  And we were getting started about five minutes in.
• 6:49
  My lone American student walks in.
• 6:51
  His name's Alex, he's nine years old and he's wearing a floor length blue dress.
• 6:56
  And he just looks and he announces to all the Panamanian children and me there, this is my favorite Cinderella dress.
• 7:04
  And I taught 27 years and never seen a boy in a dress before.
• 7:09
  But my immediate reaction was like.
• 7:11
  And I said just, that's a lovely dress, Alex.
• 7:14
  Whoever he wants to be, whoever his parents, that's their call.
• 7:17
  My job was to teach him and care about him and teach him chess.
• 7:20
  So he came in and sat down and studied chess.
• 7:22
  And he did great.
• 7:23
  And some days he wore dresses, other days he didn't.
• 7:25
  And that was just who he was.
• 7:27
  And so as I was sitting there in Boete, Panama, during COVID the other thing was that somehow in there I want to have a kid friendly story about doing just being different, just how that, how children could be
• 7:41
  different.
• 7:41
  And yet we should accept them all now.
• 7:43
  Behavior is a different thing.
• 7:45
  We shouldn't accept bad behavior like hitting people or that kind.
• 7:48
  But the variety of things that children can be and aspire to be, we need to accept.
• 7:52
  We need to love on the children.
• 7:54
  The genesis of that story, Princess Max Conquers the World, came about from meeting my daughter's friends and then dealing with Alex and my chess club, which was fun.
• 8:05
  And so I just said, I have some time, and then got it illustrated.
• 8:08
  And the illustrator did a really amazing job.
• 8:11
  I was real happy, turned out.
• 8:13
  And it's interesting you should say that, Kevin, because first of all, very fortunate.
• 8:17
  I have interviewed over a hundred children's book authors, and the one thing I found is the topics have been extremely diverse.
• 8:28
  I did some research, I was thinking, wow.
• 8:32
  And I looked at the children's book market.
• 8:36
  I thought, let's just have a peek.
• 8:37
  And I found out it's growing.
• 8:40
  You hear about population, people aren't having as many children, and you think, oh, maybe that means that the market will be in decline.
• 8:49
  But what I was finding is that because of the diverse subjects now being written about in children's books, it's just brought a much broader appeal.
• 9:01
  And I thought, wow, it's just not Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
• 9:06
  I think one of those things, and I experienced it as a teacher, a way to connect with your child is reading a book or listening to them read a book.
• 9:15
  There's an intimacy there.
• 9:16
  There's something you might have had a terrible day.
• 9:20
  You had to work overtime.
• 9:21
  So you've come home late, but you sit down and you're son or daughter brings a book and you read a book with them.
• 9:27
  And all of a sudden, there's that moment.
• 9:28
  There's that moment you get to have with your child, they have with you.
• 9:31
  And so reading a book is a powerful way and a powerfully good way of parenting.
• 9:36
  Just that opportunity, they can't do it, maybe every night.
• 9:39
  But if your children are reading books and then you can read with them, it's just an amazing thing.
• 9:44
  And so I think that's why it will always be a good thing.
• 9:47
  Just because you're connecting with your children.
• 9:49
  Or, yes, in my case, I'm connecting with my grandchildren.
• 9:54
  Because the first two books that we've written in our book series, which is called Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear, have been co authored with my oldest granddaughter and my middle granddaughter.
• 10:06
  What's made it fun and what's even made it more fun is that we've written 38 books in our book series.
• 10:15
  Now, it's not inexpensive to bring a book to market.
• 10:18
  I'll have to hit the super lotto or something to ever bring them all to life.
• 10:23
  What we did is we've actually recorded with their young voices, they've narrated the stories.
• 10:30
  And when a child narrates a story they helped write, it's quite interesting because to your point, the engagement is incredible.
• 10:40
  Thank you for sharing this whole thing about the impact of children's books.
• 10:44
  Children One of the things I did as a teacher for writing is to come in after lunch and I'd read a book, and with certain books, I'd get to about where the climax was, and then I'd just go.
• 10:59
  And then a shark came and ate all the children.
• 11:02
  All right, let's go back and let's do math now.
• 11:04
  And most of them would go, okay.
• 11:07
  Mr.
• 11:07
  Kreip said the story's over.
• 11:10
  There'd always be a couple of them that would go, Mr.
• 11:14
  Cripe, I don't think that's the ending of the story.
• 11:16
  And I'll just look at him.
• 11:18
  He knew my sense of humor.
• 11:19
  I'd go, are you saying I'm lying to you?
• 11:21
  And they would go, yes, you're lying.
• 11:24
  That's not the end of the story.
• 11:25
  I go, that's right.
• 11:26
  And what I think we could do is we could have every one of you write an ending to the story and we'll read those endings and we'll go back and then we'll bring that ending for the actual story
• 11:36
  and see how you guys did.
• 11:37
  And because they were so engaged in the story that writing became so much more interesting to them.
• 11:42
  It wasn't just something distant that they felt like, oh, we're just doing a writing assignment.
• 11:47
  They were connected to the story so that we'd go back, okay, what happened in the story?
• 11:50
  What would make a good ending?
• 11:51
  And then they'd all write and they'd illustrate a little picture, and then we'd go back and read the end of the story and go, okay, you guys did a great job.
• 11:58
  So there were so many different things that could come out of that, but I always enjoyed their look on their face when you go, space aliens came and took the children.
• 12:05
  And it's just.
• 12:06
  They go, what?
• 12:07
  And it's just like, but it worked.
• 12:09
  There'd always be one or two that go, no, I love it.
• 12:11
  I don't think that's the way it went.
• 12:13
  Mrs.
• 12:14
  Okay.
• 12:15
  Such a great idea.
• 12:16
  That's very imaginative.
• 12:18
  And it's funny because what we did in our books is we actually added what we call activity pages.
• 12:25
  One is to encourage children to write a story at the back of our book.
• 12:30
  And then we have these picture frames that are actually railroad tracks.
• 12:35
  And we encourage the children, once they've written their story, to actually illustrate their story.
• 12:40
  I love it when you do something like that and it engages people because children have such fertile imaginations.
• 12:49
  I was talking to a guest today, and she told me that when she was reading to her daughter when she was younger, she was sitting in the living room, and from her daughter's perspective, she could see these poles
• 13:02
  out the front windows.
• 13:04
  And she said, mom, I know what those poles are for.
• 13:07
  And her mom said, what are they for?
• 13:08
  And she said, to hold up the sky.
• 13:12
  And that person told me that because of that, it laid the groundwork for her to eventually become a children's book author.
• 13:21
  No, with the technology that you have with computers and with all these things you have, getting a book out there now, whether it's a bestseller or not, that's a different thing.
• 13:31
  But you can get your own book.
• 13:32
  And it's such a good idea.
• 13:34
  Back when I started teaching, we'd want kids to write a little, make a book and illustrate.
• 13:37
  But now you can really do amazing things with books.
• 13:41
  And my daughter is working on one called Being Alejandra.
• 13:44
  Just the story of her life.
• 13:47
  And it's not going to be super long, but it's going to be illustrated.
• 13:50
  We got a cover for it.
• 13:51
  First of all, the single most important thing a child learns how to do is reading, right?
• 13:57
  Yes.
• 13:58
  So the more they're reading, the better.
• 14:00
  It's always truism and whatever they like.
• 14:03
  If they like to read mysteries, great.
• 14:04
  If they want to read romance, great.
• 14:06
  Obviously, some books are probably more adult oriented in theme, but if you're a parent, you go, My mom and dad were both teachers, and when we had Scholastic Book Club things going home, I don't know if you get
• 14:17
  that where you are, but these things that go home to order books.
• 14:20
  Okay, what are you interested?
• 14:21
  I'm interested in sports books.
• 14:22
  And my sister would be interested in different.
• 14:24
  We had a little library of books that our parents bought for us so that we were reading books.
• 14:29
  And both my parents were teachers and they wanted us reading.
• 14:33
  And if you're a good reader, it opens up the world for you in so many ways.
• 14:39
  So it doesn't really matter what a child's reading.
• 14:41
  If they have an interest, promote that, support that, be interested in that.
• 14:46
  And that bridges to successful reading of science texts and things later on the more readers they are.
• 14:53
  And.
• 14:53
  And it's just such a good thing.
• 14:55
  Now that you've had your trilogy and you also have a book on chess that seems to be close to your heart and one of the things that you used in your educational background.
• 15:06
  Now that you're retired, I'm curious about your children's book business.
• 15:13
  So talk to us about what does your children's book business look like?
• 15:19
  Does not look like great things right now because I was in Costa Rica and Panama for seven years doing my own thing and I thought, okay, if I'm going to go back and pursue this and part of what
• 15:31
  I do with public speaking and in book readings, I really need to be in the U.S.
• 15:36
  it's hard to do that from another country.
• 15:38
  So I Texas doesn't have a state income tax and San Antonio's got the cheapest home.
• 15:43
  So I flew out and lived in San Antonio.
• 15:45
  So what I've been trying to figure out is what do you do on social media?
• 15:50
  How do you work this to get an advantage?
• 15:54
  How do you promote something?
• 15:56
  And because so much of what you're getting is a scam or sadly a scam or people who don't know what they're doing.
• 16:05
  And I think the last three emails I've gotten, which are really professionally, I think they're AI generated emails from someone saying they represent this company and they want to help you with your book.
• 16:17
  And then something doesn't sound right.
• 16:19
  And then a couple times I've contacted the company through a backdoor and that person goes, no, that person doesn't even work for us.
• 16:25
  So when you're trying to get help, because I'm not naturally, I think someone said people get to a certain age are technological immigrants.
• 16:34
  So we not natural to me, just finding who is going to give you help, constructive help that will help get your book out there.
• 16:44
  I've heard a number of people say, we like your books.
• 16:46
  When I do reading, oh, we really like this book.
• 16:48
  And I've asked people who are pretty objective, they won't tell me if they thought it was bad, they would tell me.
• 16:53
  And someone said, make sure you mention that the little boy cried hoax.
• 16:57
  Really?
• 16:58
  Not for small children.
• 16:59
  It's more of just dark political allegory.
• 17:02
  Okay.
• 17:02
  And we like it, but not for small.
• 17:04
  But the other two books are really there.
• 17:06
  So it's getting advice from people and finding people who can help you.
• 17:10
  In that world of the Internet and social media, that is not an easy thing to do because everyone says they can help I'm sure you've experienced it.
• 17:18
  Absolutely.
• 17:19
  And then you try something and nothing.
• 17:21
  There's no.
• 17:21
  You don't feel like you're getting reach out there.
• 17:24
  What I decided to do, because there's a bunch of stories related to chess coaching and being a parent, and is that talking to podcasts and telling stories and getting.
• 17:36
  That would be an avenue because I'm used to talking to people I've used as a teacher.
• 17:40
  That might be something to try.
• 17:42
  So this is where I'm going with this now.
• 17:44
  Although I'll do book readings and do public speaking too.
• 17:48
  So I think it's something that will grow slowly over time.
• 17:51
  Because what I realize is every single person out there who goes online is getting hit to buy something.
• 18:00
  Could be books, it could be anything, and they're being promised.
• 18:03
  It's all wonderful.
• 18:04
  How do you get through that noise?
• 18:06
  It's interesting you should say that.
• 18:07
  Not an easy thing.
• 18:09
  No, it's not.
• 18:09
  Because you know what?
• 18:10
  Not only I'm a published children's book author, but I am also a children's book author podcaster, and that opens up the doors to a lot of social media onslaught of what you're talking about.
• 18:28
  And so how do you get through that noise?
• 18:30
  And that's why I asked the question about what's your children's book business look like?
• 18:36
  Because I'm trying to help others understand, okay, how do I use my children's book?
• 18:42
  Because having one book or even three books, it's not a path to fame and fortune.
• 18:48
  I liked what you've done because I've gotten different inputs from different people, but I like what you've done because in your website, you actually put that.
• 18:58
  You're also a motivational speaker.
• 19:00
  It's right in your dot com, and we'll get into that more.
• 19:03
  But that's why I'm interested in how has your children's books helped you secure more speaking engagements?
• 19:12
  It's a slow process because I was out of the country for a while and there's a few other things that happen, and I finally got back into it.
• 19:22
  And so the other thing is, in that same world of public speaking, it's like selling books.
• 19:28
  There's a zillion people out there trying to do it.
• 19:32
  And what you have to do is convince somebody that you have a story, a message they want to hear, and then they need to hear it.
• 19:38
  So if I'm coming on your podcast or someone else and telling some stories about things, chess stories from.
• 19:43
  From coaching and some other things, or people can hear my voice and go, oh, we like that.
• 19:48
  Or they might say, we don't like that.
• 19:49
  That's not what we're looking for.
• 19:50
  But if I can get that out there, that's when I think you get traction.
• 19:55
  And again, it's so many people hear so many voices, and there's so much noise out there that what you're trying to do is break through with a message that people want to hear.
• 20:04
  Being on podcasts is a way to slowly build a group of people.
• 20:09
  And if you get up to about 100 people.
• 20:11
  I ordered a hundred sets of books.
• 20:14
  Now, they came in and the first hundred had a structural problem, right?
• 20:18
  There was a crease or something on the, like, page one, all three books.
• 20:22
  So they had to resend the 100 set.
• 20:24
  So now I have 100 set of books that I can't sell, but I give away.
• 20:27
  So if you want the trilogy and you're in the U.S.
• 20:31
  get me your address, I'll mail it free to you.
• 20:33
  Because I need.
• 20:34
  I'd like the.
• 21:09
  Getting the book reviews and all that stuff that comes with it.
• 21:11
  Because I have these books, I'm not going to sell them.
• 21:13
  I have these other books which have come in and they're good.
• 21:15
  I'm selling the trilogy and working on that.
• 21:17
  But there's this curve balls that come and you're doing these things too.
• 21:21
  And you just have to roll with.
• 21:22
  Life, your book offerings, the formats they're using.
• 21:26
  You have an ebook, and I downloaded.
• 21:29
  I wanted to show you that I purchased your book.
• 21:32
  And that is a good looking.
• 21:35
  That's a good cover, man.
• 21:36
  Isn't that nice?
• 21:37
  Like, we're looking at it on my iPad mini.
• 21:40
  And the vibrancy of the colors is fantastic.
• 21:45
  For each book I have a different illustrator.
• 21:48
  And it's weird.
• 21:49
  I had in my kind of mind's eye, what did I want the characters to look like?
• 21:54
  What did I want the overall illustrations to look like?
• 21:57
  And Princess, the Little boy who cried Hoax or wolf?
• 22:00
  The original title came first.
• 22:02
  And the guy who did it is a Venezuelan who lives in Colombia.
• 22:06
  Before we jump into that, because I do have that just a little further out.
• 22:09
  But I just want to.
• 22:10
  I just want people to know that your different formats, you've got the ebooks, you've got a soft cover, and then do you have hardcover?
• 22:19
  The hardcover is the one that I have the most of.
• 22:22
  There may be a soft cover out there, but it's really the ebook and the hardcover.
• 22:26
  Because I like hardcover books for children.
• 22:28
  I've always preferred them.
• 22:30
  So you can get the hardcover books directly from.
• 22:33
  From me.
• 22:34
  They're easy.
• 22:35
  It's free shipping in the US I don't know about Canada.
• 22:38
  It's really the ebooks that you get on Amazon and the hardback books, which you can get through my website.
• 22:44
  Put on your website in the show notes, for sure.
• 22:47
  And are you using other online retailers like ingramsparks?
• 22:53
  I just put everything on Amazon and going with that first with the ebooks.
• 22:58
  I've had things on ingramsparks.
• 23:00
  I've had things on bookbaby.
• 23:02
  I've had things on a variety of different places.
• 23:04
  I don't know that it makes a lot of difference from what I've seen.
• 23:10
  Okay.
• 23:11
  I think ultimately what you have to do is have something that catches a group of people and they go, we really like that.
• 23:18
  And then you get.
• 23:19
  If you can get a bunch of sales for one of the books or all of them, if the series.
• 23:23
  There's a reason why I chose to have a series.
• 23:25
  But if you can get a group of people to go, oh, yeah, that's interesting.
• 23:29
  That gets noticed.
• 23:30
  And all of a sudden that can create an explosion of interest because there's just so much out there.
• 23:36
  Glad you mentioned that because I wanted to talk to you about your publishing approach because when I looked at your books, I noticed, like, your chess book is a little different.
• 23:45
  So you had Mongoose Publishing.
• 23:48
  And then I noticed with the Boy who Cried Wolf, you used Book Baby and Princess Max you published and the.
• 23:55
  Good Worst Self published.
• 23:56
  Yeah, I used Book Baby long time ago.
• 23:59
  But then when I renamed the book, I think it's no longer on bookbaby.
• 24:03
  It could still be the original Little Boy who Cried Wolf.
• 24:07
  But when I changed the title, I had to change a couple things in the book.
• 24:10
  I think I've removed it from bookbaby.
• 24:12
  Okay.
• 24:13
  A bunch of stuff that happens all the time.
• 24:15
  You bet.
• 24:15
  So now you've set up your own independent publishing house.
• 24:20
  Basically, I have a way of getting the hardback books.
• 24:24
  To me, this was a steep learning curve for me.
• 24:28
  When I first wrote the first book that was done was the Little Boy who Cried Wolf.
• 24:33
  I looked at how do you get hardback books?
• 24:35
  Because my preference is hardcore.
• 24:37
  And you can get them printed in the USA.
• 24:39
  You could get them printed in China USA.
• 24:41
  It's about 10 to 15 a book, depending where you get it printed.
• 24:45
  China was $2.
• 24:47
  I went, I'm going to try China.
• 24:49
  So I ordered like 2,000 of them.
• 24:52
  And people would say, are you sure about the quality?
• 24:55
  I go, I'm not sure.
• 24:56
  But for two bucks a book, I'm going to try something.
• 24:58
  And so they came, and they're really good quality.
• 25:01
  They're excellent quality.
• 25:03
  Now, if I can sell these books for 20 or whatever, I'm not doing too bad.
• 25:07
  And that's not a bad profit margin.
• 25:09
  It's interesting you should say that, because I talked to a gal out of Oklahoma.
• 25:13
  Her name's Charlotte Glaze.
• 25:16
  Episode.
• 25:16
  She used a company called madeinchina.com and the reason I mentioned that is what she did is she went and found two different publishers, book publishers in China.
• 25:28
  She ordered a sample from each, and then she decided on one.
• 25:33
  And she said, rick, the price was incredible.
• 25:37
  The quality was phenomenal.
• 25:39
  And because she actually turned us on to a madeinchina.com our main character is a bear.
• 25:47
  And right behind me, you can see that we have a plushie.
• 25:50
  I use that company, madeinchina.com and they made a plushie for me.
• 25:57
  I could never in North America ever have produced a plushie that would have been reasonable for selling.
• 26:05
  No.
• 26:06
  And if somehow the price was easy, even close, I would prefer North America.
• 26:12
  I would.
• 26:13
  It's closer.
• 26:14
  But like I was debating as this trilogy was taking place and the idea of selling three books at once and calling it a Child Moral development trilogy was because if you sell one book at a time, you're competing
• 26:27
  against everybody else who's selling one book at a time.
• 26:29
  You put three books together and call it a child moral development trilogy.
• 26:33
  Nobody has particularly heard of that.
• 26:35
  That's a unique thing, right?
• 26:36
  Yes.
• 26:37
  But I didn't want to order a whole lot of the sets.
• 26:40
  So I then said, I'm going to get a hundred of these sets and see what happens.
• 26:45
  And so I just got those in this last week or so, the complete, the correct versions.
• 26:50
  And so I'm ready to go.
• 26:51
  If those hundred sets sell, say in the next month or so, month and a half, I'm going to go back and then go to China and say, okay, now I can see, I've sold these books.
• 27:01
  I paid more for him in the US but now I can go to China.
• 27:04
  And then that's when things start happening.
• 27:06
  Now that you went from Mongoose, which is a little different because that's your book on chess, and then you went to Book Baby.
• 27:14
  Now that you're publishing yourself, what has been the biggest challenge or frustration for you?
• 27:21
  The biggest challenge or frustration is getting it edited in a way.
• 27:28
  I don't know if it's true for you, but reading my own work for grammar and syntax.
• 27:33
  Because it just all looks.
• 27:34
  I wrote it.
• 27:34
  It looks right to me.
• 27:35
  Even people who are like English majors who are really good at that.
• 27:38
  The actual editing process of getting at all the commas and periods, and there's probably still something in there that's wrong.
• 27:45
  But I also write in a certain way that.
• 27:49
  Where I'll look at a correction that's made and, okay, you should have said it like this.
• 27:54
  And I'll go, but no, I want it to.
• 27:56
  This is how I want it said.
• 27:59
  And even if it's not exactly, because a lot of the editors will just plug it into a computer program, some editing style, and they say, here's exactly what it sound like.
• 28:08
  I don't want to sound like that.
• 28:10
  I wrote it this way for a reason.
• 28:12
  So it's the balance of getting the syntax.
• 28:14
  And then how is it that you want to say what you want to say?
• 28:17
  Because some of the editors will put it in this kind of pristine, seen, perfect English, which is not really what you wanted to have in the first place, but you do want to have as much as possible, capitals,
• 28:29
  commas and things that make sense.
• 28:31
  It's readability.
• 28:33
  And, you know, it's interesting you should say that, because the first person I had edited our books was my grandchildren, because they read them out loud.
• 28:41
  And then once I did that, I had a contact who was an editor, and then she edited from there.
• 28:48
  She was good about it.
• 28:49
  She understood it was a children's book and she understood the.
• 28:54
  The language and the words that needed to be used.
• 28:57
  And we.
• 28:58
  I thought it turned.
• 28:59
  They turned out well.
• 29:00
  But you know what?
• 29:02
  It's interesting.
• 29:03
  Editing can be definitely a little bit of a bone of contention, right?
• 29:08
  And it's also.
• 29:09
  You're looking at how much do you want to spend on it?
• 29:13
  Because you could spend $5,000 on editing.
• 29:15
  You could spend $500 on editing.
• 29:18
  Finding people who know what they're doing.
• 29:20
  And it's just.
• 29:21
  I use.
• 29:22
  There's something called fiber.
• 29:24
  I've used it to build websites.
• 29:25
  I don't know if you've heard of fiber.
• 29:27
  Yes, I have.
• 29:28
  I use it a lot to get a lot of things done cheaply.
• 29:30
  And it normally works really well.
• 29:33
  But then every now and then you think, no, that wasn't what I wanted at all.
• 29:36
  That's where I got the illustrators for two of books.
• 29:39
  One thing I will say again, because you're dealing with a children's book that's usually 500.
• 29:45
  I've seen it go up to maybe 1500 words.
• 29:48
  But generally in that range, to get a good children's book editor, I would say 100 to $200 maximum.
• 29:55
  You should be paying.
• 29:57
  Editing is probably the least expensive investment you're going to make in a children's book.
• 30:03
  Yeah.
• 30:04
  And that was the other reason I went self publishing.
• 30:06
  You mention something, it's the amount of words.
• 30:09
  Because you submit something and they'll say, is it more than 1500 words?
• 30:12
  Because if it is, keep it.
• 30:14
  We're not going to look at it.
• 30:16
  And I had that happen enough to go.
• 30:17
  And I've read and I go back to the reading experience.
• 30:21
  Most of the books I read that I really liked that students liked the most were 3,4000 words.
• 30:25
  You looked at any Dr.
• 30:26
  Seuss book.
• 30:27
  Horton, here's a who and all.
• 30:29
  There's really long books, right?
• 30:31
  If they're good books, kids will sit and listen to them.
• 30:34
  And so I have books that are around 3,000 words.
• 30:37
  And I knew because I'm technically a nobody.
• 30:40
  I'm somebody to some people, but I'm a nobody in the publishing world.
• 30:45
  They were just never going to even take a sniff at a book and go, no, because it's too many words.
• 30:49
  And I was like, fine, I will, gladly.
• 30:51
  I want something that I write to be me.
• 30:54
  And that means it goes over.
• 30:55
  Then that's the way it is, and life will move on.
• 30:57
  Kevin, you're absolutely right.
• 30:59
  The whole thing is it's just a guideline generally.
• 31:03
  And when you're doing your research, because a lot of times you'll see some people say 24 pages to a children's book.
• 31:09
  Some people say the standard is 32.
• 31:12
  But you know what?
• 31:13
  I've seen up to 48 pages.
• 31:15
  And it all depends what your goal is with the book.
• 31:19
  If you look at our books, we add value at the back of the book because we've added what we call activity pages.
• 31:26
  That takes the number of pages in the children's book up.
• 31:30
  But our hope is that not only do you read our book, but you actually then create your own stories from it.
• 31:37
  Right.
• 31:37
  And at the end of each of the books in the trilogy are 10 questions, comprehension questions or discussion questions.
• 31:43
  I wanted to make sure that if a parent was reading a book with the child, how can we have a discussion about this?
• 31:49
  There's some questions in there.
• 31:50
  What about this?
• 31:51
  What did you think about it?
• 31:51
  And give them a chance to talk about the story once you've read it, because then you remember it better.
• 31:55
  And it's incredible that you should say that, because at least 75% of the.
• 32:00
  Of the children's book authors that I've talked to are either teachers or early development childhood educators.
• 32:09
  And what's interesting, I've been finding that more and more teachers who are also children's book authors are building curriculum to support their book.
• 32:19
  Because when they go to the school boards are saying, oh, oh, Kevin, I love your book.
• 32:24
  Have you got some curriculum to go with it?
• 32:26
  And a lot of teachers are now getting success because of that.
• 32:30
  So it's quite interesting.
• 33:23
  One thing just as an aside.
• 33:25
  One year when I was teaching math, we did not.
• 33:28
  Somehow, we didn't have an official math curriculum.
• 33:30
  We were in between curriculums, and they said, just make it up.
• 33:33
  And I went, okay.
• 33:34
  So there's a song called if I Had a Million Dollars.
• 33:37
  That's why the Bare Naked Ladies.
• 33:39
  Right.
• 33:39
  And I didn't ever tell the students that it was by the bare naked lady.
• 33:42
  They never figured that out, but we would sing it.
• 33:44
  And then my entire math curriculum for the year was tied into word problems that dealt with how much would a green dress call?
• 33:50
  How much.
• 33:50
  What would the difference between these all.
• 33:52
  And then we'd sing the song.
• 33:54
  And so they let.
• 33:55
  That was the best math curriculum ever, because we got to sing.
• 33:58
  All the word problems were generated from questions about it.
• 34:02
  And it's just.
• 34:03
  It was a great thing because when most teachers are given the opportunity to create, they create meaningful learning.
• 34:10
  It's not always true.
• 34:11
  I've taught a few dud lessons in my life where I just go, ah, that was terrible.
• 34:15
  But teachers like creativity and music and things like that make learning more fun.
• 34:20
  And I always said if a child's smiling, they're learning.
• 34:24
  You can give them a smile.
• 34:25
  Not laughing necessarily, but smile.
• 34:27
  They give.
• 34:27
  And that's the nice thing about being a children's book author.
• 34:30
  You get to create the curriculum from the story you wrote.
• 34:34
  Pretty cool.
• 34:35
  Yeah.
• 34:35
  No, it's fun.
• 34:36
  And I wrote the stories, particularly Princess Max in mind, with.
• 34:40
  I wanted to see smiles because there's things that happen in there as they're reading at Travis Park United Methodist Church in San Antonio.
• 34:47
  Shout out Travis Park.
• 34:49
  And.
• 34:49
  And I can.
• 34:50
  When I'm reading, I can look at people's eyes and watch their expressions.
• 34:54
  And their kids got certain things that they thought was funny, and the adults got other things that they thought were really like the adult.
• 35:00
  Oh, that was.
• 35:01
  Yeah.
• 35:01
  Hey, that works for us.
• 35:03
  So when you're watching it and you're watching it in real time, it's fun.
• 35:05
  It's just a fun experience.
• 35:07
  Fantastic.
• 35:08
  So I want to jump in.
• 35:10
  Before we get to your book, I want to jump in a little bit on your website.
• 35:14
  So talk to us a little bit more about your website, why you chose to name your website the way you did.
• 35:21
  So please tell us the name of your website again.
• 35:24
  There's two of them, and there's kevincriitmotivationalspeaker.com.
• 35:29
  Okay.
• 35:29
  Which I think you've looked at as I've created this trilogy.
• 35:32
  There's a specific website for the trilogy, which I will get you.
• 35:36
  And its name just escapes me right now.
• 35:39
  The purchasing of the trilogy, that's.
• 35:42
  I wanted a separate one, and people had told that.
• 35:45
  The advice I got from most people is you want to have a separate place to sell the books.
• 35:50
  The motivational speaker thing can mention the books, but you should have things in there.
• 35:55
  There's a video of me in there talking about chess, which is.
• 35:58
  I'm wearing a Viking hat for part of it, which we did a one take in my classroom, which was really cool.
• 36:03
  There's some other information.
• 36:04
  I watched that newspaper.
• 36:06
  Did you like that?
• 36:07
  Yeah.
• 36:07
  With Thor, I love.
• 36:09
  And the YouTube and the YouTube posters.
• 36:11
  Behind all the trophies my kids have won in chess.
• 36:14
  And it turns out, just as a backstory, as some of my chess students became adults.
• 36:21
  I'm a big.
• 36:21
  I'm a big U2 fan and Coldplay fan.
• 36:23
  And U2 was going to play in Hawaii with Pearl Jam opening for them.
• 36:28
  And so they were adults.
• 36:30
  They were, like, in their 20s.
• 36:31
  And I called them up.
• 36:31
  This was several years ago.
• 36:32
  Hey, you guys want to go see Pearl Jam and U2?
• 36:35
  And they all.
• 36:35
  Yeah.
• 36:36
  So we flew out.
• 36:37
  I took a bunch of students and my three adopted children from Guatemala.
• 36:41
  We flew to Hawaii to see Pearl Jam and U2, which was really fun.
• 36:45
  Wow.
• 36:46
  So you saw the YouTube posters in that little video?
• 36:48
  And those got those.
• 36:50
  Those came from U2 concerts all over the world.
• 36:53
  That is neat.
• 36:54
  We'll definitely add in Kevin's link to his trilogy in the show notes.
• 37:00
  Talk to us about how you're using your social media to promote your books.
• 37:05
  The thing that I was told as I started the podcast was.
• 37:09
  And it makes sense, and I get it, was the bigger your social media, the more access you have to podcasts.
• 37:17
  And so, like, in January of this year, I had one Instagram follower.
• 37:24
  Okay, one is better than zero is in a numerical sense.
• 37:28
  But it's not great.
• 37:29
  I'm like, I'm K Grande63 on Instagram or something.
• 37:32
  And what they said is, you need to work on building your Instagram following.
• 37:37
  And you can do it a couple ways.
• 37:38
  You can organically do it by talking to people.
• 37:40
  And people hear me on your podcast and go, hey, let's go.
• 37:45
  It's whatever you do with Instagram, you follow someone, let's go.
• 37:48
  Follow Kevin on Instagram.
• 37:49
  That's a good thing.
• 37:50
  You can actually buy followers, which I think is cheap, but it does elevate your social media status.
• 37:58
  And they say you don't need to do all of them, but you should focus on something like Instagram or X or whatever else is out there.
• 38:05
  I happen to have quite a few friends on Facebook because that's the one I've used the most over time, which it's for people who are in later years, but so I have quite a few people there that I
• 38:15
  will send stuff out on.
• 38:17
  It is a mystery to me why some people like some things and don't like others.
• 38:23
  I like to say it's a good book, read the book, but apparently if you put a pickle on your head and danced around in circles, people go, oh, we really got.
• 38:31
  Now let's read his book or something.
• 38:32
  So you.
• 38:33
  Apparently the crazier thing you do to get attention is the thing that brings in people.
• 38:39
  And I'm not sure how far I want to go down.
• 38:41
  I just like to talk to you, talk to people, say, I have some books.
• 38:44
  If you want to read the books, read the books.
• 38:45
  They're good books.
• 38:47
  But there's some stuff in there about engagement and bringing people to your places that I have no clue that I'm working on doing.
• 38:55
  I'm getting some help with some from people and trying to grow.
• 38:59
  So if you want to follow me on Instagram, follow me on Instagram, that'd be great.
• 39:04
  But the actual how that works best, micro influencers, all that kind of stuff.
• 39:09
  Influencers.
• 39:10
  I'm figuring that it's.
• 39:12
  I'm a worker and, you know, whoever gave you that advice, you want to be good at a couple of social media platforms trying to be everything to everyone.
• 39:22
  If you ask me about TikTok, a lot of people love TikTok.
• 39:26
  You know what?
• 39:27
  I'm having trouble enough navigating Facebook and Instagram.
• 39:32
  Plus, of course, I advocate to most of my listeners that they should also be on LinkedIn.
• 39:39
  Because the nice thing about LinkedIn is people say it's a business social media site, but it.
• 39:44
  If you look at LinkedIn, there's so many great groups and a lot of us are trying to get our books in front of educators, like principals and teachers.
• 39:54
  There's a lot of great principal and teachers who groups on LinkedIn and those are people who are making decisions on bringing your books into school.
• 40:04
  I have a LinkedIn too.
• 40:06
  I had not thought about that.
• 40:07
  But you are 100% correct on that.
• 40:10
  And that makes sense because I always, like you said, I thought it was it's a bunch of business people and how am I going to connect it?
• 40:16
  But you're right, there is a big education component to LinkedIn.
• 40:18
  If you look on LinkedIn, there's one group called principals and teachers.
• 40:22
  It's in the thousands of people.
• 40:25
  Okay, good to know.
• 40:26
  Thank you so much.
• 40:27
  Yeah, so definitely have a look at that.
• 40:29
  Talk to us about the motivation behind your book.
• 40:34
  I know you talked about this, the student you had in and but in terms of the overall motivation to write a children's book, was it something you were thinking about for some time and looking for that one incident
• 40:50
  triggered you to take action or what do you think it was?
• 40:55
  I know with the little boy who cried hoax wolf.
• 40:58
  I was just watching TV and going, this is so depressing.
• 41:01
  How could I make a children's book out of this?
• 41:03
  Okay.
• 41:04
  And that came first.
• 41:05
  That one got done first.
• 41:07
  But then as I was in Panama sitting there and it's really during COVID I had a three bedroom apartment to myself and I had a 200 yard backyard that went into a jungle, into a mountain.
• 41:20
  I kept food delivered to me every day.
• 41:21
  But the thing I couldn't do was go out and socialize.
• 41:24
  So I had all this time and somewhere in there I went, let's write a book.
• 41:30
  And it turns out that the Good War and Princess Max came to me around the same time, literally within 24 hours of each other.
• 41:38
  And I sat down and wrote them both relatively, I think within a week of each other.
• 41:44
  And then I was like, okay, I like these now.
• 41:46
  Now let's get him illustrated.
• 41:48
  And so there was a process to find an illustrator to get him illustrated.
• 41:52
  But in terms of my motivation, like I said, I go back to experiencing racism with my children who are Guatemalan.
• 42:03
  Three adopted children from Guatemala.
• 42:05
  I'll tell you one story.
• 42:06
  My oldest son's Jose, and he's 19 years old and he comes home one day from school, from where he was, and I'm going to come home from school.
• 42:14
  He goes, dad, the police stopped me.
• 42:18
  I go, what?
• 42:19
  I go, where were you?
• 42:20
  What were you doing?
• 42:21
  And because walking across Cal State Stanislaus, the university in Turlock, where I lived in Turlock, and police rolled up and asked for my id.
• 42:30
  And I go, what were you doing?
• 42:31
  What were you wearing?
• 42:32
  Were you wearing anything gang related?
• 42:33
  Because he wasn't.
• 42:34
  But he said no, just drinking Pepsi, walking across Cal State Stanislaus.
• 42:39
  And they talked to me and they told me I had to leave the campus.
• 42:42
  He's 19 years old, he has every right to be on the campus.
• 42:44
  He wasn't attending school there, but you could, everybody can walk across the campus.
• 42:48
  Beautiful campus.
• 42:50
  So I was really mad and so I called the president of the university, says, okay, why was my son stopped by the university police today?
• 42:58
  I want to know you, blah, blah, blah.
• 43:00
  I gave him a mouthful because it wasn't our police, it was the Turlock Police Department.
• 43:05
  I go, I'm calling the police department.
• 43:07
  So I called the Turlock Police Department and my son's right next to me and he's listening to my phone call and I'm talking to someone, the captain of the police.
• 43:14
  And he gets the report and he says, the police officer said your son was walking suspiciously.
• 43:24
  Okay, One in the afternoon, drinking a Pepsi, walking across a college campus.
• 43:27
  A 19 year old boy was walking suspiciously.
• 43:31
  And look at my son.
• 43:32
  I go, dude, how do you walk suspiciously?
• 43:36
  Just like that.
• 43:37
  He does this sarcastic.
• 43:39
  And it dawned on me that never in my entire life would it I could walk anywhere I want and no one was ever going to bother because he's brown hair, brown eyes, speak Spanish.
• 43:50
  There's a suspicion that is related to people of color in the US I don't know if it's true in Canada, but there is a suspicion there that I have never had to deal with and yet exists.
• 44:04
  And you go back to.
• 44:05
  And I was having to be reading something about in Tennessee, the guy named Nathaniel Bedford Forrest, who was the first Grand Imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
• 44:15
  And they actually named schools that there's still as of 2028 Schools named after the Grand Imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
• 44:22
  And they have a bust of him in the State House in Tennessee in Nashville.
• 44:26
  I think it's where they say, I go, why would you have a guy who is a Grand Imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in your State House?
• 44:34
  It's just plan.
• 44:36
  And so I took those ideas and put them together to form the Good War.
• 44:40
  Okay, so that's where that story that I had time, I was thinking about, okay, how do I want to do this?
• 44:44
  What do I want to do?
• 44:45
  There's a teacher in the story named Ms.
• 44:47
  Margie.
• 44:48
  My mom's name was Margie.
• 44:49
  She was the best teacher I ever saw heard.
• 44:52
  And so I put her in the story and then wrote that story with the other story with Princess Max.
• 45:00
  I wanted to bring in the things I saw, the things I heard with my daughter and her friends, and a little bit of the boy in the chess program at Bocchetti.
• 45:11
  And I have a really good daughter story too, by the way, if you want to hear it.
• 45:15
  My daughter was in junior high school, Turlock Junior High, and she was a bad student.
• 45:19
  She would trot off to school every day, angry, wearing black sweatshirt, black sweatpants, right.
• 45:26
  And she was just angry about the divorce, about a lot of things.
• 45:29
  Just mad at life.
• 45:30
  Adolescent girl with anger.
• 45:32
  And her friends were all the gangster kids.
• 45:35
  And not the pretend ones that you see, like the actual ones are going to juvenile hall.
• 45:39
  And a lot of them spend their life in jail.
• 45:42
  And that's who she hung out with.
• 45:43
  And she talked too much in classroom.
• 45:45
  And she wasn't really.
• 45:46
  She was a tough kid, but she was never mean.
• 45:49
  And she's come across school campus one day and there's a bunch of the popular students, as she described them, and they were picking on a gay boy and making him cry, and they're calling him all kinds of names.
• 46:02
  And she could do anything she wanted to do.
• 46:05
  And what my daughter did, she placed herself between the boy and the crowd and she pointed her finger at the crowd and she said, why don't you guys just shut the F up?
• 46:19
  Okay, now you go.
• 46:20
  You weren't there.
• 46:21
  How do you know that's what happened?
• 46:22
  There was a vice principal of the school who came around the corner and saw everything, pulled her into the office, called me in my classroom, which was about 20 minutes away, and said, I'm suspending your daughter for three
• 46:32
  days.
• 46:32
  You need to come down and hear what happened.
• 46:35
  And I drove down to junior high school and heard the story that I just told you, and I looked at my daughter and I said, is that what you said?
• 46:43
  And is that what you did?
• 46:45
  And she went, yeah, because she doesn't lie.
• 46:47
  Okay, I have a problem with the three day suspension, first of all, but I'm not going to complain about it.
• 46:52
  Just I think it's too much.
• 46:54
  Maybe in school suspension for a day.
• 46:56
  I'm a teacher, but I only got one question.
• 46:59
  Go.
• 46:59
  What's happening to the bullies?
• 47:02
  And he looked at me and he said, nothing.
• 47:06
  Which got my this kind of the devil that sits on one side says, yell and scream.
• 47:12
  The angel that says, don't.
• 47:13
  I was like, I gotta say something.
• 47:15
  I don't want to end up in jail.
• 47:16
  So basically I said was, there's a lot of problems at this school.
• 47:20
  Very few of those problems are the fault of a 13 year old brown girl who wears all black to school and it says the F word every now and then.
• 47:27
  Most of them are your fault because you don't even know when a student's done an amazing thing.
• 47:33
  And I looked at my daughter and I said, mija, vaminos, let's go.
• 47:37
  And I looked at him and I said, have a blessed day.
• 47:40
  And we left and I walked out to the car and I said, okay, first, Al, two things.
• 47:45
  One, don't use the F word at school.
• 47:48
  Never going to help you.
• 47:49
  We don't use bad.
• 47:50
  I know it's in our culture.
• 47:51
  I know bad words happen all the time.
• 47:53
  Leave the bad words at the.
• 47:54
  But secondly, and eternally, infinitely, much more Importantly, you did 100% the right.
• 48:01
  I'm so proud of you and I love you so much because I have taught 20 plus years and I can't think of a time where someone has seen a group picking on a child and stepped in.
• 48:14
  I said, you're not getting any punishment from me.
• 48:16
  Yeah, you're suspended, but you're going to end up at Grandma Grandpa's and we're going to celebrate all three days of your suspension.
• 48:22
  You're going to get to have fun at grandma and grandpa's, so you're not going to be in trouble there.
• 48:25
  And then my way of celebrating because I was a single dad was you got to choose where we went to dinner.
• 48:30
  So she chose Olive Garden three nights in a row.
• 48:32
  So we took her to Olive Garden three nights in a row.
• 48:35
  And I said, always be that girl.
• 48:37
  Be that person who will step in and help people.
• 48:40
  And so that story of I was just always, as I was writing about Princess Max, I was thinking of Alex and thinking of my daughter and the fact that she would stand up for people that she would.
• 48:52
  I wanted a strong character who.
• 48:54
  And if you've read the story, yes, strong character, maybe too strong sometimes, but he is who he is and he's not going to back away.
• 49:02
  Let's talk about that character development.
• 49:05
  Talk to us about Max and his character development because I, you know, when I end add in his parents because they definitely had influence in the story.
• 49:15
  I don't want to give the whole story away, but his parents, particularly his dad, the whole first, as you're reading the first page and finding out about the dad and how stuff I had fun writing that was fun
• 49:25
  to write I had a.
• 49:28
  That was.
• 49:29
  Of the three, it may have been the most fun to write because I'm putting stuff in there like the dad's band and the name of the band and how the band members got their name and the mop and
• 49:40
  then Nandy the friend and all those things.
• 49:43
  There were things I had the artist put in there specifically because I wanted them in there, where you could have just had a kind of generic, generic illustration, but I know I want this in there.
• 49:54
  There's a point in the book where in the basketball tournament where Max says, I hope you're happy with second place.
• 50:00
  And I wanted that little word box to be a heart because he's saying it to the opposing coach who had been really snotty to him.
• 50:07
  And so there's all these things.
• 50:09
  I wanted Max to be a strong character of supreme confidence in his ability in who he was, and that he wouldn't be mean to other people.
• 50:23
  But he wasn't going to back down from who he was.
• 50:26
  And either the world was going to change to fit him or.
• 50:31
  Or he didn't care.
• 50:33
  And he has to deal with name calling.
• 50:34
  He has to deal with people who are not good to him, but he is this relentless force of, I am going to be me.
• 50:42
  Does that tie into your theme, how you developed your theme?
• 50:46
  Yeah, because I was just thinking all the way through the book, I want him to be supremely confident.
• 50:54
  The theme of this book is to be yourself, to be unafraid, to be and to just go for it with the talents that you have.
• 51:01
  And Nandy's character, I wanted her to look at that and for her to initially go, wow, he's really unafraid.
• 51:11
  There's a question at the end of which, is it easier for Nandy to be Nandy, or is it easier for Max to be Max?
• 51:17
  And she decides, maybe it's easier for Max just because he is who he is.
• 51:21
  He doesn't hide who he is.
• 51:23
  So all of that I was thinking as I was writing and just having fun, having him thumb his nose at people in a playful way.
• 51:34
  I didn't want him to be rude or snotty because I don't particularly like rude, snotty children.
• 51:39
  But I wanted him to be over the top, confident in his abilities and who he was, and just say, this is who I am.
• 51:48
  Deal with it.
• 51:49
  And happened to be extraordinarily good at basketball, too, when I got it done, when I.
• 51:54
  And.
• 51:54
  And this was true for the good War, too.
• 51:56
  Once I wrote was pretty much done.
• 51:59
  There were a Couple small changes I made.
• 52:01
  But the reality of it was I had it in my head.
• 52:05
  I actually have the second book in the series ready to go to.
• 52:08
  It's in my head.
• 52:09
  I haven't written it yet.
• 52:10
  Talk to us about that.
• 52:12
  I'm curious insights into your writing development, your writing process.
• 52:18
  So talk to us about that.
• 52:19
  For me, it's not a process so much as an explosion.
• 52:26
  I don't know how to describe it other than I'm just sitting there.
• 52:29
  I go, oh, what about this?
• 52:32
  Like, for the second book, what came to me was the end of the book.
• 52:36
  First stories don't come sequentially, necessarily.
• 52:39
  To me, an idea comes.
• 52:41
  The idea that Max is going to be in a background basketball tournament, which happens near the end of the book, came to me first.
• 52:48
  In the Good War, there is a picture of a teardrop with a family member in the teardrop, which was the very first thought I had about that story.
• 52:59
  And then I built the story around it.
• 53:01
  And once it's in my head, then I sit down and write it.
• 53:05
  I don't write a little bit and then go, okay, now what do I want to do?
• 53:08
  I'm not saying maybe that's what everybody else does or that's what people do.
• 53:11
  That's my unique thing is I just think of something and then just, boom, build.
• 53:15
  Okay.
• 53:16
  And when it's done, do you think.
• 53:18
  That you draw more on your personal experience or are you doing additional research as you're writing?
• 53:25
  No, because most of what I'm drawing from is personal experience.
• 53:30
  Like you said, I don't like with Nathaniel Bedford Forest.
• 53:34
  I needed to check out how to spell his name and a little bit of research about a little more about him before I.
• 53:40
  The school in that book is NB Forest.
• 53:42
  There's a few things that I want to do with Max.
• 53:46
  One of the things I did, I have a friend of mine who and I have a couple friends in the LGBTQ+ community, but she works with after high school youth in Salt Lake City, Utah.
• 53:57
  And I said, I need you to read this book.
• 53:58
  And I did that with a few other people.
• 54:00
  Is there anything in this book that because of your work and develop in this area that you find could be worded better or that you take offense to in some way?
• 54:10
  I could not understand?
• 54:11
  I saw this particular community through my daughter's friends, but maybe I missed something and that I had that and everyone I talked to said, no, this is a really good book.
• 54:22
  We really like it.
• 54:23
  We don't see any problem with it.
• 54:24
  I did have that book checked out for that.
• 54:27
  But in terms of things I wrote, no, it pretty much.
• 54:32
  Once I'm done writing, I'm done writing something.
• 54:34
  I don't tend to add more.
• 54:37
  I may edit a little bit or take a paragraph out or move it around, but it's.
• 54:40
  Once it's done, I want you to think about success.
• 54:43
  So I want you to think about your first book and how you envision success.
• 54:48
  And now take us to your third or fourth book and how success like to you now, the first book was.
• 54:56
  A chess book, okay?
• 54:57
  It came 2007, I wrote it and had a publisher go, we want to write that.
• 55:02
  Which is really cool.
• 55:03
  It's 500 pages long.
• 55:05
  Think about your children's book, okay?
• 55:08
  Success for me is a reaction I get from people when I'm reading, when I've done book readings and I look at people and they come up and go, we really like that.
• 55:17
  We really, really appreciate that book.
• 55:20
  And as you're watching and you're reading words and they're looking at pictures that you had specifically created and they like it and you go, that.
• 55:29
  That's success for me.
• 55:30
  If I don't sell one book, I'd be a little sad because I would like to sell some books.
• 55:35
  But if I look at something that's done work that I created, that I wrote, those words, I had it illustrated.
• 55:42
  Success for me is to be happy with what you've done.
• 55:45
  And if nobody else likes it, that's sad.
• 55:48
  But in this case, a lot of other people, almost everybody I talk to, like the books.
• 55:53
  It's my challenge is getting them out there in front of people.
• 55:58
  And I'm not particularly good at that.
• 56:00
  It's not my.
• 56:01
  So in your readings, I'm curious because I don't want to put words in your mouth, but when you do your readings, do you have adults coming up to you and saying, kevin, you know what?
• 56:13
  That's me.
• 56:13
  In your book, you have people like at Travis Park.
• 56:17
  It was not a big group, but I.
• 56:20
  There's a couple, George and Stefan.
• 56:22
  They're married and they have two sons and beautiful family.
• 56:26
  It was happened to be one of the son's birthdays and I had him help me read the book.
• 56:30
  And so I brought him up there and he got to hold the pictures out to everybody and I asked him a few questions and it went really well.
• 56:37
  When you ask people questions, you're getting a response in real time what they thought.
• 56:43
  Do they stay around?
• 56:44
  Yes.
• 56:45
  Do they take off?
• 56:46
  And so if everybody stays around and gives you what you think, or when there's time for questions or what are the kinds of questions that they ask.
• 56:53
  You're getting a feeling back from it and it always positive feeling.
• 57:00
  And from what I've heard from people who have read the book, they like it and like the books.
• 57:07
  But because the book, like in Texas, where I'm at, I talked to people at a book fair yesterday, and Princess Max book in particular, is not a book that's going to be a book fair, is in Texas because
• 57:20
  the government subsidizes some of the book fairs.
• 57:22
  I don't know if it subsidizes all of them.
• 57:24
  And Texas state government doesn't want books like Princess Max in their book fairs.
• 57:29
  So you deal with this sort of bureaucratic banning of books.
• 57:33
  But I chose to be in Texas.
• 57:34
  I guess I'll figure that out.
• 57:36
  But I'm planning on going to book fairs in other states where they value a book like Princess Max.
• 57:42
  But that's what you deal with.
• 57:44
  So at the long answer, and I'm not sure I completely answered your question, that vibe I get from people when you're reading it.
• 57:52
  The same thing from reading to students for 27 years.
• 57:56
  If you've got a good book, you've got a good story, something that's got their attention.
• 58:00
  And part of it is stopping to ask questions.
• 58:02
  Part of it is having a little smile when you've read something you really like and checking to see if other people are smiling.
• 58:08
  It's really reading the room in the.
• 58:10
  Grand scheme of things.
• 58:12
  Now that we know you're retired, what does being a children's book author mean now for you, going forward?
• 58:21
  It's something that if people get to know more about that, I am that cool thing to have.
• 58:27
  Right?
• 58:27
  It's.
• 58:28
  Yeah, he wrote some books.
• 58:29
  We like the books, or even if they don't like the book.
• 58:31
  I don't have a problem if somebody doesn't like a book.
• 58:33
  It's a world we live in, but to that extent, to have that kind of attached to you.
• 58:40
  As someone who wrote some books, to me, it's a cool thing.
• 58:43
  I don't let it go to my head.
• 58:45
  It's not like I'm the number one published author in the United States or over the world, but I haven't got a Pulitzer Prize or anything like that.
• 58:52
  But to look and to be able to go out and talk to people and share with people, particularly with a story like Princess Max, which is going to have some element in some places of controversy attached to it
• 59:03
  just because it is make the World a better place.
• 59:07
  If people like it, it's made the world a better place.
• 59:09
  I'm happy.
• 59:09
  If that's one person, that's a good thing.
• 59:12
  What advice would you give to aspiring authors now?
• 59:16
  That pretty prolific writer now?
• 59:18
  So what advice would you give to an aspiring author?
• 59:23
  Write what brings you joy.
• 59:25
  Don't write for other people.
• 59:28
  I will, after a book is done, to have people look at it, but I won't along the way, say, but do you think I should do this or do you think I should do that, or what do you
• 59:36
  think about this?
• 59:36
  If you start bringing in other people into your process, you're not writing from your heart.
• 59:40
  You're not writing for yourself.
• 59:42
  I think listening to advice is a really good thing.
• 59:44
  But when you're writing something that you have this vision of in your head and you want to get it on paper and maybe some people won't like it, maybe they will, but you do.
• 59:53
  The process for you.
• 59:55
  Is that what keeps you going as a children's book author at this point?
• 1:00:00
  I'm not going to write any more books until I see how this thing goes.
• 1:00:03
  And I'm in the beginning of the process.
• 1:00:06
  I think within six months I'll have a pretty good idea of what's happening and then I'll see if I want to do more, because it does.
• 1:00:13
  There's money involved in getting things illustrated.
• 1:00:16
  Absolutely.
• 1:00:17
  For now, I'm very happy with what, because everything I'm doing, like making a website, going here, doing this, it's all new.
• 1:00:25
  I'm getting help and figuring it out and seeing how it goes.
• 1:00:29
  And the podcast idea came to me in January and I thought, that's something I can do.
• 1:00:34
  I can talk to people.
• 1:00:35
  I've got good stories from teaching and that'll be a way of best getting my books out there.
• 1:00:40
  Absolutely.
• 1:00:41
  Encouragement.
• 1:00:42
  Kevin, for readers.
• 1:00:44
  Why should children's book readers purchase your books?
• 1:00:48
  I think, and I want to make sure I make this clear, the Good War and Princess Max are fun books for parents to read with children.
• 1:00:56
  Admittedly, if you're an extraordinarily conservative person in objective LGBTQ community and don't like that, you're probably not going to like Princess Max.
• 1:01:06
  You're not going to like stories that deal with racism.
• 1:01:08
  But for just your parent out there trying to figure out the world and how to read a story that deals with things with children, they're fun stories to read, and you would have fun parents reading them with children,
• 1:01:21
  fun discussing them and enjoy it.
• 1:01:23
  The Boy Cried Hoax is a little bit darker thing.
• 1:01:26
  So I'm not sure that's a real parent child thing, but I think most of the people who've read it really like it.
• 1:01:31
  So not as much a parent thing.
• 1:01:33
  Fantastic.
• 1:01:35
  Final thoughts?
• 1:01:36
  Kevin, is there something you said?
• 1:01:38
  Gee, Rick, I wish you would have asked me this question.
• 1:01:41
  Any final thoughts?
• 1:01:43
  The chess book.
• 1:01:44
  Because the chess book's out there and I spent 20, 20 plus years, I created a chess program for children who live in poverty and went to about 200 tournaments and 14 national chess championships and watched the students use
• 1:01:59
  chess to become first generation college graduates.
• 1:02:02
  And so there's a bunch of stories around that.
• 1:02:06
  It's a whole separate part of this because that's what I did most of my teaching career was every weekend.
• 1:02:12
  Not every week, but most weekends drive kids to a tournament and watch students do some amazing things because we were competing against the top public and private schools in the country at the time.
• 1:02:22
  That book, which was a kind of labor of love of ideas of how you take students who nobody thinks are smart, I had literally at our first national championship, we're going to fly kids to North Carolina.
• 1:02:36
  One of the teachers at the school, a Mexican teacher, said, don't take these kids to the national championship.
• 1:02:42
  They'll only embarrass themselves.
• 1:02:45
  And that whole thing of showing that just because kids come from a certain part of town, because there's certain ethnicity, they can think and learn and they can achieve at a high level too.
• 1:02:56
  And so that was most of my teaching career.
• 1:02:58
  The children's books came after I retired.
• 1:03:02
  My entire career was about helping children learn chess and going to tournaments.
• 1:03:07
  That was enormously fun and rewarding.
• 1:03:09
  And so that book came as a labor of love out of that.
• 1:03:12
  Kevin, thanks so much for being a guest on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors podcast.
• 1:03:19
  Your generosity of time insights will significantly benefit aspiring authors and readers, and we promise to provide links for Kevin's social media, both websites and his books.
• 1:03:34
  And if you've enjoyed this episode, please hit the subscribe button to listen to our future episodes and feel free to share this episode with anyone inspired by or who enjoys hearing about Kevin and his children's book, Princess Max
• 1:03:50
  Conquers the World.
• 1:03:51
  Thank you, Kevin.
• 1:03:53
  Thank you so much.
• 1:03:54
  Appreciate it.