Latest / Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors Podcast / How to Combine Music and Storytelling to Create Powerful Children's Books

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How to Combine Music and Storytelling to Create Powerful Children's Books · Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors Podcast

• 2:21
  I'm Susie o', Leary, the author of O spaghettio.
• 2:25
  Thanks, Susie, for appearing on children's book authors podcast, Adventures in the Heart.
• 2:30
  Susie has written a children's book, and today we'll be discussing her book, O O spaghettio.
• 2:38
  Also, Susie is a multifaceted entertainer and we're going to delve a bit into her musical background and how is it supporting her children's book.
• 2:48
  And I look forward to that conversation.
• 2:51
  Before we start, I just wanted you to know you're my first Australian children's book author podcast guest.
• 2:59
  So I am really excited about this.
• 3:03
  I'm excited, too.
• 3:05
  Thank you.
• 3:07
  And I have to tell you a little bit about my exposure to Australians because I live in Canada, near the Canadian Rocky Mountains.
• 3:17
  I'm not sure if you're familiar with Banff national park in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, but a lot of Australians, when they come to Canada, they get jobs, and they get jobs in the ski resorts or whitewater rafting or
• 3:33
  in the restaurants.
• 3:34
  And it's always cool because, of course, the accent's a little different and they're always friendly and accommodating.
• 3:42
  And so that has been my exposure to Australians.
• 3:48
  We wrote a book, and so if there's any Australians who have been in Canada and you worked in Banff national park, our book, the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear, is all about the Bow Valley and the
• 4:03
  Banff national park area.
• 4:05
  So I just thought I'd mention that because that's where I've had my exposure to most of the Australians I know in my life.
• 4:13
  Oh, wow.
• 4:15
  Susie, before we jump into the details of your book, tell us what being a children's book author means to you.
• 4:25
  Oh, it's.
• 4:26
  It's like taking an adventure that you never thought you would take.
• 4:29
  And I think that's exciting and you discover things and in a way like a child would, because I feel so new to it.
• 4:36
  I feel like I'm discovering this world that I never expected to go into.
• 4:40
  And so it's exciting and it has a different feel to the world of where I came from, which was music.
• 4:47
  So, yeah, I found it very exciting and lots of, I don't know, it feels really open and there's lots of room for creativity.
• 4:54
  I always find that children's book author community so open and giving, so they love to share.
• 5:02
  I would absolutely agree.
• 5:03
  I think that's something that has stood out for me, coming from music background, just coming into that author space.
• 5:09
  How wonderful author you are.
• 5:12
  Just always very encouraging of one another and very much Wanting to support one another to get ahead and it's not that competitive field that I'm used to coming from.
• 5:21
  Yeah, it's lovely.
• 5:21
  I totally agree.
• 5:23
  Wow.
• 5:24
  I'm curious about the inspiration and your origin story behind your book.
• 5:31
  Tell us about how you came up with this great idea of writing a children's book.
• 5:38
  What's the origin story?
• 5:40
  The origin story.
• 5:41
  I think if I can go back, if you can indulge me a little bit.
• 5:44
  Absolutely.
• 5:46
  So I was.
• 5:47
  It was during COVID actually, which I think inspired a lot of mothers and parents and a lot of creative ideas because for me as a musician I had regular gigs and I'm a vocal teacher as well.
• 5:59
  And that had all come to a standstill.
• 6:01
  I went from helping my children at home just with day in, day out stuff to then becoming their teacher a little bit as well.
• 6:08
  And I had a three year old at the time and just dealing with the day and stress of entertaining and trying to get them engaged and trying to deal with the emotional kind of trying to teach my 3
• 6:19
  year old basically how to deal with things emotionally but being the primary like teacher as well as obviously her carer.
• 6:26
  So I found myself creating songs just to make light of small situations.
• 6:31
  So she had a little whoopsie doo, which is where Spaghettio comes from.
• 6:35
  She had a little whoopsie do.
• 6:36
  I found myself going oh Spaghettios.
• 6:38
  And I made a song naturally as a musician, made it into oh, spaghetti.
• 6:42
  And just little things like just anything we did, we made it into a musical moment.
• 6:47
  And that's just the way that I coped with dealing with the COVID situation and the anxiety that I had a seven year old as well and she was a bit anxious going with the whole washing hands in school
• 6:59
  and all the things that were going on.
• 7:01
  She wasn't used to it.
• 7:02
  So I used music as a vehicle to make light of some situations that just to give them that emotional regulation.
• 7:09
  And.
• 7:09
  And it was in this that the O Spaghettio thing I found it became a bit catchy with my kids and then I found it that I would say it around my nieces and nephews if I ever got to
• 7:19
  see them.
• 7:20
  And then my friend's kids and they all picked it up really quickly and I went, oh, that's really interesting.
• 7:25
  So then I started to talk to them.
• 7:26
  Can you think of something where you had a whoopsie do?
• 7:29
  And so then we were talking about that and they were like laughing, telling me, oh, when you know, bull ant.
• 7:34
  Now in Australia we had big bull ants and I think Anyone who knows about Australia, about creepy crawlies, all the things that love to come out.
• 7:43
  So we have big bullets and they are notorious for when you go for a picnic, they bite your bottom or they bite you where you don't want to be bitten.
• 7:50
  Basically, it sounds like mosquitoes.
• 7:53
  Yeah.
• 7:53
  Yes, exactly.
• 7:55
  It's a very lasting impression.
• 7:57
  Let's just say that when you get bitten by a bull ant.
• 8:00
  And so I put together this kind of narrative based upon little scenarios of whoopsie dos.
• 8:07
  And because I had a three year old, a normal one would be when you wet your pants.
• 8:12
  And that moment where you're like.
• 8:13
  You're so caught up in the moment and then you're like, oh, I got distracted and.
• 8:17
  And so implying that you wet your pants, making light of those situations.
• 8:21
  And I created a song basically from it.
• 8:24
  This book started as a song I never took myself seriously.
• 8:27
  My background as a musician is I also do compose and I had written albums, but they were much more serious nature.
• 8:36
  So I never took this side of things seriously.
• 8:38
  But it was that I know synchronicity of.
• 8:42
  I happen to have been speaking to someone in the educational space and who also had a background in musicianship and she was saying to me, oh, I just mentioned on a fly.
• 8:52
  Oh, I've been writing these kids songs.
• 8:54
  She said, oh, I'd love to hear them.
• 8:56
  Because she's actually became a lecturer at a local university here.
• 9:00
  And she said, I'd love to hear them.
• 9:01
  Can you send them through?
• 9:02
  So I just did a little voice recording, sent them through to her and she said, there's something to this.
• 9:07
  You need to record this properly.
• 9:09
  This was in 2020.
• 9:10
  I don't have a studio available.
• 9:12
  I do have a microphone and I do have software.
• 9:14
  So I piecemealed the whole album together.
• 9:18
  I created and so SpaghettiO got recorded and I just.
• 9:22
  I had never done a drum track for myself, I'd never done many things.
• 9:26
  But I ended up creating all the tracks for it and producing it.
• 9:30
  I sent it off to the ABC here, that's national radio.
• 9:35
  And yeah, I sent it through and I was like, hey, could this maybe be created into something bigger?
• 9:42
  They said, oh, we'll put it on rotation.
• 9:43
  And I went, what?
• 9:44
  This is a demo kind of thing.
• 9:46
  So anyway, I need to say from there it led to.
• 9:49
  And this is why I said, if you could indulge me, because I knew it'd be long.
• 9:53
  So it was.
• 9:54
  I ended up finding myself creating shows into libraries and I don't know how this went about it was.
• 9:59
  I was looking at ways that maybe there's something to this.
• 10:02
  And people.
• 10:03
  Because the song itself ended up going into a music award and becoming in a far less position.
• 10:08
  I went, okay, there's something to this.
• 10:10
  I didn't realize.
• 10:11
  The funny thing is, I started to do these library shows, and I just kept seeing this song as a book.
• 10:17
  It's like I could see pictures and I could see this spread out.
• 10:21
  And I went, there's something to this.
• 10:22
  This needs to be a book.
• 10:24
  And I think it was informed by going to libraries, like doing my songs and seeing how I naturally wanted to put actions and kids would gravitate towards that.
• 10:35
  But also going, there's a link here.
• 10:37
  There's something to book.
• 10:39
  Because I knew nursery rhymes, you can sometimes see pictures with them.
• 10:42
  And I went, okay, I think this needs to be a book.
• 10:45
  So then I just started to look at where could I find an illustrator?
• 10:49
  How do I go about this?
• 10:50
  So it's a very roundabout way to come into being an author.
• 10:55
  And this is why sometimes I feel like an imposter in that space, because I started as a composer creating this, and then saw this just purely by happenstance of going, okay, here I am in these library spaces.
• 11:08
  There's something to this.
• 11:10
  I keep seeing these pictures.
• 11:11
  I've got to explore this.
• 11:12
  And that's where that started for me, and that's how it became into a book.
• 11:16
  That's terrific, because I've Talked to almost 100 children's book authors now, and you're the first one that's come at it from that approach.
• 11:24
  I've heard different, unique approaches, but that's the first time I've heard where you came at it from a musical production and then turned it into a visual production.
• 11:36
  That's fantastic, because I just had a guest on last week, and he, Richard Ryman, episode 101, calls himself the Audio book wizard, and he produces audio books.
• 11:48
  But he does something special because he actually works with the blind children, and he teaches them and coaches them in downhill skiing.
• 11:57
  Can you imagine?
• 11:58
  You're going downhill skiing and you're blind, and he's behind them going left, left, right as they race down the hill.
• 12:07
  And he found that even though there was lots of enhanced audiobooks that do description and dialogue for adults, there was nothing for children.
• 12:19
  We started doing audiobooks for children.
• 12:23
  And from that, he did over 200 children's audiobooks and said, oh, I think I want to write my own children's book.
• 12:33
  So he came at it a little differently, too.
• 12:35
  He came at it from the audio side.
• 12:39
  And then that triggered it for him to come up with an idea and produce his own.
• 12:44
  He's written two children's books in a series.
• 12:46
  We all come at it differently.
• 12:49
  Yeah, we do.
• 12:49
  Absolutely.
• 12:50
  Absolutely.
• 12:51
  I'm curious because I'm glad you shared how you came at it from your musical background, because I love talking to people about thinking about their children's book business.
• 13:05
  So I'd be curious to know with your musical talents, and then you produce this book, you write this book and you get it illustrated.
• 13:14
  So tell us, how are you using your musical talents to build a children's book business?
• 13:21
  I think they just go hand in hand.
• 13:23
  So for me, if it's catchy musically, there's usually.
• 13:28
  I find.
• 13:29
  And it's something I'm looking into retrospectively.
• 13:32
  Even when I'm speaking to other people, like teachers, about the power of music, if it's catchy musically, it's usually got a catchiness to the words too.
• 13:42
  There's the naturally in lyric writing, you gotta have that rhyme and you've gotta have that flow and that kind of leans musically as well.
• 13:51
  Like they both work in together.
• 13:52
  When you're going out and doing a musical performance, explain to us now how you're incorporating your book and I'll explain to you why.
• 14:02
  I'd like to know this because I talked to Alison Thompson, episode 40, from the UK, and she wrote a book called Sunny Steps, Loves to Dance, and she owns a preschool dance studio where she teaches young children how
• 14:18
  to dance.
• 14:18
  And that inspired her to write a children's book and that now she sells her children's book and she's about to produce her second book at her dance studio.
• 14:29
  I'm curious how you're using it.
• 14:31
  Yeah, no, this is good.
• 14:32
  I go into libraries now and into Kindies and I do a show.
• 14:37
  It's like reading through singing.
• 14:39
  I incorporate.
• 14:40
  So I'll do some nursery rhymes, but then I will do original songs of my.
• 14:45
  I have many original songs and I'll put movement to them.
• 14:49
  And I have songs where even I'm looking at phonics and I will give them a chart and we'll go through some phonic sounds together and then we'll sing them.
• 14:57
  And then.
• 14:57
  Oh, Spaghettio.
• 14:59
  One thing that I in research and also as a mum that I know this repetition is really important for kids and for kids to have comprehension around what's being taught and being told.
• 15:09
  Being able to say and speak out the story first and go through the story with the kids and actually teach them the action.
• 15:16
  So this is one thing that I discovered in my performances.
• 15:20
  The power of not only singing and music, but movement and research.
• 15:25
  Perhaps me.
• 15:25
  But this appeals to children in the sense that children learn differently.
• 15:29
  So we know that some kids are.
• 15:32
  They're oral learners.
• 15:33
  They listen and they can pick up things quickly.
• 15:36
  Other kids need that kinesthetic learning so that movement to help them.
• 15:39
  And other kids will be visually like captured a story.
• 15:42
  So I thought if I can find ways to really engage them.
• 15:47
  So having movement for those kids to need to feel it in their body so they feel empowered.
• 15:52
  Oh, look, I'm doing the.
• 15:53
  Oh, Spaghettio.
• 15:54
  Doing the actions.
• 15:55
  And we do the actions together.
• 15:56
  They know what's coming and they feel a part of the story with me.
• 16:00
  So that's one way and then.
• 16:02
  Then the next to sing it together.
• 16:04
  The movement, the rhythm gets them wanting to move and gets them a part of the story.
• 16:09
  So I found it a really powerful way to incorporate the two.
• 16:13
  Is that part of your business strategy when you go out to do live performances?
• 16:18
  You take the books along with you?
• 16:19
  Yeah, I take my books along with me.
• 16:21
  I sell them at the end of the show.
• 16:23
  I introduce them to the book.
• 16:25
  I show them how to go through the book.
• 16:27
  Because one of the things is my book and I'll put it on screen.
• 16:30
  My book has a QR code at the front.
• 16:32
  It said stream along, sing the song.
• 16:35
  They that may be missed.
• 16:36
  So I will take parents through and there's a QR code parents that you can stream the song and I'll take them through how they can experience the book, which can be experienced by going through the.
• 16:49
  Just the story itself.
• 16:51
  Or they can.
• 17:27
  For parents who want.
• 17:28
  They can have the YouTube or with Spotify, they can choose what they.
• 17:32
  The link takes them to gesture to where they can go.
• 17:35
  And they can go and experience the book that way as well so that they know their children again have content that they go, oh, okay, that's appropriate for them.
• 17:42
  They know what to expect.
• 17:43
  So yeah, that's exactly what I do is I bring that book.
• 17:46
  Terrific.
• 17:47
  The areas.
• 17:48
  Yeah, I love it.
• 17:49
  So I also noticed you're very active on YouTube and I love it because you've got two types of videos on YouTube.
• 17:59
  You have your own live performance where you're the primary focus and you have some fun and you have your.
• 18:06
  I think it's a ukulele, but it's a little smaller than the guitar, but a little bigger than a ukulele.
• 18:11
  Have I got that right?
• 18:13
  Yeah, it's called a ukulele.
• 18:15
  It Might be just slightly bigger than the usual.
• 18:17
  Okay, it just looked a little bigger to me than ukulele, but maybe I'm.
• 18:21
  Just a little small.
• 18:23
  There we go.
• 18:24
  And then you also have your animated videos, which I loved and I actually listened to several of them.
• 18:33
  And of course I listened to O Spaghettio.
• 18:36
  The nice thing about it, they're not very long, but they are engaging.
• 18:40
  Tell us about, first of all, your live performances that you're doing or live is that you're the person front and center.
• 18:49
  And then the animated.
• 18:51
  How did you do the animated versions?
• 18:54
  My live performances.
• 18:55
  The interesting thing that I have to say is that I created the.
• 18:59
  I'm the author of Spaghetti, obviously, but I've created the company to be happy seeing kids.
• 19:04
  Because even when I began I was like, this is not about me, this is about the kids.
• 19:09
  So I.
• 19:09
  What do.
• 19:10
  I'm wanting to.
• 19:10
  What's.
• 19:11
  What do I want to produce?
• 19:12
  I want to produce happy singing kids.
• 19:14
  I want to get them engaging in singing.
• 19:16
  So that's the idea.
• 19:17
  And while I'm the forefront and the person that you'll see in the videos, and I love to perform, it's not always going to be important that it's going to be me.
• 19:25
  I use my kids as well in the performances.
• 19:27
  When we went to Edinburgh years ago, they performed with me and I got my eldest daughter to sometimes take over a little bit.
• 19:34
  So it's.
• 19:35
  It's.
• 19:35
  I.
• 19:36
  Yeah, so I do that in the sort of small, educational little shorts.
• 19:40
  I'm the primary person.
• 19:42
  Right.
• 19:42
  To teach.
• 19:43
  It won't maybe always be the case, but with the animations, I just tried to find animators that could potentially just take the vision.
• 19:53
  So it was just going through online where you can find people who can do those things for you.
• 19:58
  They're just use services for that.
• 20:01
  Yeah.
• 20:01
  And speaking of which, I'm actually going to be releasing a couple more.
• 20:05
  It's like I've been going behind the scenes a little bit and going, okay, how can I build up a few more and then release them all out?
• 20:12
  Anyone listening, make sure you do go.
• 20:15
  And we'll have all the links to Susie's different social media, but you definitely have to go to her YouTube site and see all of these neat little productions that.
• 20:25
  That Susie's done.
• 20:26
  So thank you for sharing that.
• 20:28
  Yeah, no problem.
• 20:30
  Talk about your publishing for a moment.
• 20:32
  I notice you have a hard copy and a paperback on Amazon.
• 20:37
  Yes.
• 20:38
  And.
• 20:38
  But I noticed you don't have an ebook.
• 20:41
  Why is that?
• 20:43
  It's basically because when I was looking into it at the time that just didn't see many kids books on, on ebook then and that might be my naivety to the whole field, but I couldn't see that.
• 20:55
  And I know that too.
• 20:57
  I don't want the paper books and I don't want everything to go 100% digital.
• 21:02
  I guess I have my digital version already, which is the YouTube.
• 21:06
  So there's a sense where if they want to experience my book, you can do that for free.
• 21:11
  Going through YouTube.
• 21:13
  Yeah.
• 21:13
  So that's, I guess the reason, the.
• 21:15
  Only reason I ask that is because when I was talking to my guest last week and he was talking about, we were talking about ebooks and he said now in his case it's being visual doesn't help a blind
• 21:28
  child.
• 21:29
  But he said he noticed that a lot of parents were buying the ebook because what they did is even though their children were not blind, they were listening to the enhanced audio because it also did the description.
• 21:45
  And so as they were driving on a road trip and I, that's what I was thinking about.
• 21:50
  When I go on a road trip with my grandchildren, what do we do?
• 21:54
  We sing and somebody takes over the iPhone, goes to Apple Music and guess what we do?
• 22:01
  They pick out the songs and then we gotta sing and we're always constantly singing.
• 22:06
  And I thought if you had an ebook and they could open it up and then sing along with the audio, what fun.
• 22:12
  On a road trip.
• 22:13
  And I know Australia is a big country like Canada and I would imagine when you go on a road trip in Australia, it's not a five minute drive.
• 22:22
  No, nothing.
• 22:23
  But anyways, I just throw that out at you.
• 22:26
  Yeah, I like that.
• 22:27
  That's good.
• 22:28
  Thank you for mentioning that.
• 22:29
  You've given me something to think about.
• 22:31
  My pleasure.
• 22:32
  Do you use a service like ingramsparks for all the other online retailers?
• 22:40
  Yeah, in libraries.
• 22:41
  They have different services here.
• 22:42
  So ALS is the services.
• 22:44
  So you have to approach them to go through libraries and the services there.
• 22:49
  And then for self published authors, there's something called John Reed's book.
• 22:54
  Okay.
• 22:55
  That's right.
• 22:55
  Susie, what does ALS stand for?
• 22:58
  Als, I think it's Australian literacy services.
• 23:01
  Even with als, they have their different streams for different regions of Australia.
• 23:08
  Different councils will use different services through als.
• 23:12
  ALS is the main one, but they'll have little branches of that.
• 23:16
  So you have to approach each different distributor within that region.
• 23:20
  So it's a little bit tricky.
• 23:22
  But you, you keep getting your feelers out there and introducing what you're doing.
• 23:26
  And one of the beauties of Having a musical book is, I think any librarian knows, just for doing story time, how much kids really enjoy nursery rhymes.
• 23:37
  They really enjoy singing.
• 23:39
  And for even the librarians, what I've spoken to, they really enjoy that aspect of being able to give that time for the kids where they can.
• 23:48
  They can read to them, but they can also sing.
• 23:50
  It was just me approaching those, but yeah.
• 23:52
  And then outside of that, John reads books and I use Amazon for the paperback, as you saw, and everything else comes through my website and I use stripe as the business side end of that.
• 24:05
  I'm one of those fortunate people who chose wisely.
• 24:09
  My husband is in FIT and I've gotten him to build my website and so he could put all that in the background with that.
• 24:15
  Terrific.
• 24:16
  I noticed your.
• 24:17
  Your hardcover book is printed in China.
• 24:21
  Yes.
• 24:21
  So it was printed through a local Brisbane company.
• 24:24
  So they were Clark and McKay and they printed it through China.
• 24:29
  Yeah.
• 24:30
  Terrific.
• 24:30
  And it's nice to have Amazon because it's worldwide distribution.
• 24:36
  That's what I wanted.
• 24:37
  Yes, exactly.
• 24:38
  It is amazing because like our podcast show is now listened to in over 64 different countries and I'm always amazed that happens.
• 24:49
  But it's also nice because every single children's book author I've talked to uses Amazon as their primary distributor, which is fantastic because if I ordered your book, I could have it overnight through.
• 25:03
  It's amazing.
• 25:04
  Yeah, ingramspark is good as well.
• 25:06
  And I think it was just came down to costs of what Amazon would give per paperback in comparison to ingramspark.
• 25:14
  For me that was where that choice came down to as well.
• 25:17
  Let's talk about your publishing approach for a moment.
• 25:20
  When I went online and I looked on Amazon.
• 25:23
  Are you your own publisher?
• 25:27
  Yes, I am.
• 25:27
  So.
• 25:28
  So you're an independent children's book publisher?
• 25:31
  Yeah, essentially I use Clark and McKay and they were like a.
• 25:35
  And I attribute them because they basically.
• 25:38
  I wouldn't have been able to publish the book without them because I'd never done this before.
• 25:41
  So would it be a hybrid publishing company where they helped you?
• 25:45
  Yeah, they support self published authors so they will be the middleman negotiating with the printing press.
• 25:51
  And so they do things like dealing with.
• 25:54
  There was artwork issues for me with the bleed.
• 25:57
  So did they help you find an illustrator or did you find your own illustrator?
• 26:01
  Oh, that was.
• 26:02
  I found that myself.
• 26:03
  And this is again where that community of authors and illustrators is absolutely brilliant.
• 26:09
  What would have been your biggest challenge or frustration as you were in the publishing portion of your children's book?
• 26:17
  Oh my goodness.
• 26:20
  We have Time I said indulge me before and I'm kidding.
• 26:24
  No, I think the biggest thing for me was actually finding what I'll call the middleman, that publisher who could take what I wanted into to give the final product of what I wanted.
• 26:36
  And I was lucky to find Clark and McKay when I did.
• 26:39
  But prior to that I was trying different companies around the world just going, what?
• 26:44
  Who's the best?
• 26:44
  How can I make this viable?
• 26:46
  Like I knew it's an investment to obviously produce a book and you have to know that you're going to sell at least more than one copy.
• 26:55
  So you know who can do it at a price that I can actually potentially not make all my money back maybe at first, but get some of that money back so I'm not completely out of pocket.
• 27:06
  Yeah, that was a bit frustrating.
• 27:08
  And then trying to convey exactly, exactly what I wanted to just get that final look that it just took a little bit of toing and froing.
• 27:15
  But ultimately like I said, the people that I found in the end were good at being able to accommodate some of the things that I was really big about.
• 27:24
  The way that it was set up in the front cover and that type of stuff and just even the stream along, sing the song, you know what that should look like?
• 27:30
  Is that a QR code?
• 27:32
  Is that a little sticker looking thing?
• 27:34
  How am I going to get parents to actually know that this stands out as a different kind of book?
• 27:39
  It's not just story, there's a musical song to go with this.
• 27:42
  Those things take a little while.
• 27:44
  And then obviously when you go to print there's always delays.
• 27:47
  There's just delay when you're trying to think about.
• 27:50
  For me, I had a tour of 12 libraries booked and I wanted to make sure that I could get it out so that I could be there with all the people who had come along to the 12 library
• 28:00
  shows.
• 28:01
  How can I have this book in hand?
• 28:03
  And unfortunately because of the delays and the shipping and all the things, I couldn't make that work.
• 28:08
  So those little frustrations of going, you're trying to do a launch date and anyone who's in anything to do with who's produced a book and wants to actually get people to buy that, you need to market the book,
• 28:19
  you need to give anticipation around the book so then people get excited about it.
• 28:24
  You want to give teasers around it.
• 28:25
  If you don't have a physical product, it's very hard to do that.
• 28:28
  And if you don't have a due date of like when it's arriving.
• 28:31
  That can be very hard.
• 28:33
  Yeah.
• 28:33
  So that.
• 28:33
  And I'm glad you mentioned all that, because it's also interesting, when you're producing a book, the timeframe, in terms of.
• 28:42
  To your point, you're talking about marketing.
• 28:45
  I had someone reach out to me a couple of weeks ago, and they were launching their book in May, and they wanted to come on our podcast show, and they also wanted it to be released.
• 28:56
  And I'm working about eight to 10 weeks ahead on podcast interviews and another eight to 10 weeks in getting the podcast released, and the person was shocked.
• 29:09
  And part of what we're trying to do is educate aspiring children's book authors.
• 29:14
  All I can say is the moment you get an idea that you're going to write a children's book, that's when you should start figuring out how to promote it.
• 29:24
  Because most podcasters, you're working so far out in advance to try and get your book marketed in a short period of time just quite.
• 29:35
  Doesn't work.
• 29:37
  Yes, absolutely.
• 29:38
  Couldn't agree with you more.
• 29:39
  And same with booking shows, libraries.
• 29:42
  Some libraries work a year and a head in advance, and that's very difficult to deal with because you don't.
• 29:48
  You're trying to plan these things.
• 29:50
  Yeah.
• 29:50
  You're figuring out your life.
• 29:51
  Right.
• 29:52
  Exactly.
• 29:53
  You're trying to work out how to make best.
• 29:55
  And what can I do in that time?
• 29:57
  How can I promote this properly?
• 29:59
  And yeah, it is tricky.
• 30:01
  Right on.
• 30:02
  And I want to talk to you.
• 30:03
  I'm sure this is very fascinating.
• 30:06
  I'm curious about your relationship.
• 30:08
  First of all, tell us how you found your illustrator and the relationship you have with the illustrator.
• 30:15
  Okay.
• 30:15
  It was very fortuitous.
• 30:17
  I was on one of these Facebook author illustrator pages, and Amno Zaki is my illustrator for this book, and she.
• 30:27
  I don't know.
• 30:27
  I think I'd seen something that she created, and I went, ooh, I really like that.
• 30:32
  I like she.
• 30:33
  Just straight away, I just.
• 30:34
  There was something about the way that she created it, and it stood in my mind, because one of the things that I'd recommend anyone who's thinking about writing a book or has an idea, get onto those author community
• 30:45
  pages because you'll get inspired.
• 30:46
  I've thought there was someone there that I really liked.
• 30:48
  So I went back and looked through and I found her and went, this is my girl.
• 30:52
  I just knew.
• 30:53
  And where does she live?
• 30:54
  She's based in Pakistan.
• 30:55
  So it's funny because this is a national thing.
• 30:58
  I had no idea.
• 30:59
  When I.
• 31:00
  You say, oh, my illustrator is based in Pakistan people go, oh, of course you're finding a TB writer.
• 31:04
  No, actually, it was her illustrations.
• 31:07
  Like, she.
• 31:07
  In this community, I had no idea.
• 31:09
  I'm dealing with people from all across the world.
• 31:12
  And she just something about her style, I thought she brought a lot of energy to the illustrations that I'd seen.
• 31:19
  And you know what, you've hit it right on the button, Susie, is that we're in Canada and our illustrator is in the uk.
• 31:27
  And I found that illustrator by going online like you did, and then finding his art just resonated with me and I thought, this is the guy.
• 31:38
  And so that's how it started.
• 31:40
  And that's a beautiful thing about technology nowadays, is we're global.
• 31:45
  Yes, absolutely.
• 31:46
  Send her your songs.
• 31:48
  Yes.
• 31:49
  I reached out to her through Instagram and just said, look, I've been following, I've seen some illustrations you've created and I love your work.
• 31:55
  I would love you to produce my children's song.
• 31:59
  Like my.
• 31:59
  I'm trying to convert my children's song into a book and I'd love you to do this.
• 32:03
  And I'd actually had the animation created already, so I was like, you can check out the animation, but I'm thinking the brief was a little girl.
• 32:12
  And the other thing that from the get go, I knew just with my branding, I needed to have a little red Pomeranian.
• 32:19
  So I have a little red Pomeranian at home and I've just made her like my little mascot that she'll go across my books and animations.
• 32:26
  So I said, it needs to have this little red dog sort of thing.
• 32:30
  And.
• 32:30
  Yeah, and then I.
• 32:31
  And spaghetti O hair.
• 32:34
  Yeah.
• 32:34
  And honest, I have to give her credit for that because I didn't say needs to be spaghetti hair.
• 32:41
  I just said, this is the different things.
• 32:43
  And she came back to me and was like, I'm seeing this spaghetti hair, like, how are you?
• 32:47
  And I said, that is brilliant.
• 32:49
  And this is the thing.
• 32:49
  I'll give her full credit.
• 32:51
  Amna was the one who thought of the red hair and the spaghetti hair and that didn't click to me.
• 32:55
  She did that.
• 32:56
  This is where a good illustrator absolutely brings you.
• 32:59
  No question.
• 33:00
  That's fantastic.
• 33:02
  Yeah.
• 33:02
  So she.
• 33:03
  She had that and she was brilliant to work with.
• 33:05
  We didn't ever speak in person, which is interesting, but we did everything via emails and messages.
• 33:12
  And I find that 99.9% of the time, it's all through technology, if most people don't talk to their illustrator.
• 33:22
  Yes.
• 33:23
  It's just the way it works and it seems to work well.
• 33:27
  It Does.
• 33:27
  And she got the brief very well and I was impressed from the get go.
• 33:32
  She was absolutely brilliant.
• 33:33
  And.
• 33:34
  Yeah.
• 33:34
  And if you do a second book, would you use her again?
• 33:38
  Yeah, I am doing a second book so I'm using her currently.
• 33:41
  Yeah.
• 33:41
  So you.
• 33:43
  It's been like my non negotiable, particularly in my mind.
• 33:47
  And you're talking about business side of things.
• 33:49
  I'm.
• 33:50
  For me, I'm thinking, okay, I see things a little bit differently because I'm seeing them musically.
• 33:55
  And I said to you that power of music with literacy.
• 33:58
  And I've thought about this more and I'm going, okay, I want to have this oh, SPAGHETTIO series which is, I'm calling it that.
• 34:05
  But at the moment books about scenarios that kids will relate to but also talk about emotional regulations.
• 34:11
  Oh, SpaghettiOs about resilience, you know what to do when things go wrong.
• 34:15
  You get up on your feet again and the chant is just about, it's, it's just a fun chant but the idea is the girl keeps going.
• 34:21
  Like she gets up and she keeps going and that kids can relate to.
• 34:25
  Okay, things go wrong, but that's normal and we've got to get up again and we keep on going.
• 34:30
  And then this next book that I'm doing is about emotional regulation as well.
• 34:35
  When you're grumpy and it has actions.
• 34:37
  And the idea is I want to have a series which is all about emotional regulation, about things that make children feel like they belong, that they're special.
• 34:46
  That and things.
• 34:47
  Yeah, so it's more, I guess they can connect to from their own life experiences, hopefully.
• 34:53
  And then the other sort of book series that I'm thinking of creating that I've started doing is more based on phonics.
• 34:59
  So how can I get kids, particularly here in Australia?
• 35:03
  There's been articles about children finding it really difficult for spelling and in year one level that they're really doing a push here in Australia.
• 35:12
  And I was talking to a librarian in Melbourne, I'm based in Brisbane, but she was saying the same thing, that they're trying to really encourage children with phonics.
• 35:20
  And she'd asked me about that and I said, oh, I have.
• 35:22
  I created a phonics song.
• 35:23
  I didn't know it was a phonics song by the way, when I created it.
• 35:26
  I just created a song to help my 3 year old at the time had speech delay and I wanted to help her because I knew, I know with my background as a vocal teacher, I'd done some research talking
• 35:38
  about children having speech Delay, but also speech impediments.
• 35:42
  Because we're not correcting kids on their speech.
• 35:46
  We're letting lie a little bit more, which is okay.
• 35:49
  But when they get older then got this speech pattern that they find very difficult to change.
• 35:54
  So is if you can get it when they're young and start to correct on some of these th and p and those letters, you know how to enunciate those phonemes, then it's nice that.
• 36:05
  You have your musical background.
• 36:07
  Yes.
• 36:07
  So I thought part of that was I wanted to create something that I wouldn't be that irritating mum who was like.
• 36:14
  Like I could.
• 36:15
  And so I created a song where you end up saying the sound many times and you're tricking the kids into practicing.
• 36:22
  No, but that's.
• 36:23
  Can you make it in a positive environment?
• 36:26
  That's the idea is that there will be a book series on difficult phonic sounds and featuring that letter.
• 36:33
  So I.
• 36:34
  That's what I'll be doing as well.
• 36:36
  Yeah.
• 36:36
  Terrific.
• 36:37
  I want to talk to you about your website development because now you revealed a little bit, you revealed that your husband is the technical guru in the house.
• 36:48
  So I'm curious about a couple of things because did your website come first or your book to us?
• 36:56
  Tell us the name of your website and then talk to us a bit about the whole development.
• 37:01
  And when you did release your book, how did you incorporate that into your website?
• 37:06
  Yeah, the website is happysingingkids.com Very easy.
• 37:10
  You don't even need the www.
• 37:12
  By the way, no more.
• 37:15
  Yeah.
• 37:16
  And it's spelled exactly how it sounds.
• 37:18
  So that takes you to the website.
• 37:19
  The website was created before the book.
• 37:22
  There's been iterations of their website.
• 37:23
  The website looked a little bit different before.
• 37:26
  So we had a series of shows.
• 37:29
  We actually went to Edinburgh Fringe Festival or Festival Fringe, I should say, in 2024 and did 42 shows there.
• 37:37
  I know it was.
• 37:40
  So had two weeks, 42 shows, three shows a day, back to back.
• 37:43
  So it was pretty crazy.
• 37:45
  I did that with my children.
• 37:46
  I took my husband obviously as well, and he recreated the website for that to try and give it a new spruced up look.
• 37:53
  And that's when I brought the book.
• 37:55
  Knowing that I was going to Edinburgh, having released the book, but not released it internationally, I thought, gee, this is okay.
• 38:03
  Ding, ding, great idea.
• 38:04
  I will launch this over in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
• 38:07
  So that's exactly what I did.
• 38:09
  I did my shows.
• 38:10
  The website was first and that needed to happen because I was already doing shows back in when I came out of.
• 38:16
  When we came out of COVID and we could go and do performances and stuff in 2021.
• 38:21
  That's when he created the website.
• 38:23
  And then it got a revamp in 2024 to what it's looking today.
• 38:28
  And that incorporated the book and introduced people to the book.
• 38:31
  Terrific.
• 38:32
  Talk to us about how you're using your.
• 38:37
  Because I noticed you've got links to your Facebook, Instagram and YouTube Social media accounts and it's tied into your website.
• 38:45
  Tell us what happens if I hit your Facebook link or your Instagram Link or your YouTube link.
• 38:52
  How are you using those links to create book sales?
• 38:57
  It's essentially what I see it as is if you have people who come along with the journey.
• 39:04
  So they're following recently.
• 39:05
  By the way, this is a side tangent because I am doing music and book authorship and stuff.
• 39:10
  I found myself very spread across many things.
• 39:13
  So I actually got a social media manager who I get her to really post things up and getting her promoting the book in my.
• 39:23
  In those pages, it's.
• 39:24
  It's like people can come along with the journey and start to understand my ethos.
• 39:29
  What is the ethos around this business?
• 39:30
  Yes.
• 39:30
  It's about Susie o', Leary, the author.
• 39:32
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 39:33
  Come along the journey and meet my kids and they're part of it as well.
• 39:36
  But not.
• 39:37
  I don't make them the front and center, but it's essentially about how.
• 39:42
  And the model has slightly changed as I've done a bit more research into literacy.
• 39:46
  Now the focus is much more music and literacy programs.
• 39:50
  It's about empowering children through movement, reading and singing to get them engaging into stories.
• 39:57
  How that forms into book sales.
• 39:59
  It's more that.
• 40:00
  It's a suggestion.
• 40:01
  Oh, check out this and see this.
• 40:03
  And come along to this.
• 40:05
  The book sales don't per se happen when people go to that link to Facebook or go to that link to Instagram.
• 40:10
  That's more to get them coming along to the shows or listening to the YouTubes.
• 40:15
  And that's where I guess streaming from YouTubes, there's a little bit of money comes through that.
• 40:21
  But also if they're coming along to the shows, then they're more likely.
• 40:25
  If they're already subscribed to me, they're more likely to buy a book.
• 40:28
  They're more likely to join in on the journey.
• 40:30
  So that's the idea around those links.
• 40:33
  It's that it's not direct sale, but it's them coming along for the journey, essentially.
• 40:38
  Thank you for sharing that.
• 40:40
  You told us a little bit about the motivation.
• 40:42
  And you wrote the song first and it was very visual in your mind.
• 40:46
  But was there someone or something that motivated you to finally write your book?
• 40:56
  That is a really good question.
• 40:58
  I think for me, I'm used to this in the creative space, in the composer space is to seeing things.
• 41:04
  Like for me, I've always been good at listening to that.
• 41:08
  So particularly as a composer, when you have a musical idea, you follow that trail.
• 41:13
  I'd done that already, so I have.
• 41:15
  If you were to look at my phone, I have that many voice recordings of just different musical ideas.
• 41:21
  For me with this, it was that I could just see it.
• 41:25
  And because there was just conversations and I wouldn't put it down to.
• 41:29
  I'd say one of the most inspiring people is maybe the person that I said, who.
• 41:33
  He's a lecturer who said, hey, you should record this.
• 41:36
  I think that sort of inadvertently, people just along the journey who maybe said something like, oh, that's so catchy.
• 41:42
  That song's so catchy.
• 41:43
  Or that's odd, that's stuck in my head.
• 41:45
  Or gee, that's.
• 41:46
  I love it.
• 41:47
  When if I was in the library and I was doing something and the way that they interacted with that, I think that combined with.
• 41:53
  Also I just found myself, even with well known stories, creating them into song.
• 41:59
  So well known stories.
• 42:00
  I just create a song for that.
• 42:03
  I think all of those things came about and I'm going to just try this out and see how I go.
• 42:07
  And I think I'm just one of those people that once I have an idea, I'm like, I've got to chase this to the end.
• 42:12
  So that's exactly what I.
• 42:14
  Yeah.
• 42:14
  But I would say the combination of lots of people encouraged me along the way.
• 42:18
  Yeah.
• 42:18
  It's nice when that happens.
• 42:20
  And tell us about your main character because I think you refer to your main character's eye.
• 42:26
  Is it a younger you?
• 42:29
  Yeah.
• 42:29
  No, I think then that's really good that you've pointed that out.
• 42:33
  So when I started, and you'll see the animation, it has a little girl with little brown pigtails.
• 42:38
  So I saw myself in that.
• 42:40
  I was going for a relatively international kind of just brown eyes, brown hair.
• 42:45
  That's me.
• 42:46
  So there was a little version of me.
• 42:48
  But I think that I wanted it to not.
• 42:52
  I didn't want me to stand out.
• 42:54
  Like I just thought, oh, that's just.
• 42:55
  It could be anyone in that space.
• 42:57
  But I guess that's where I said my illustrator had a different way of looking at it and really saw the spaghetti Hair.
• 43:03
  That's the brilliance of what she created is going that spaghetti hair.
• 43:07
  And it was interesting.
• 43:08
  Like I said, I launched it at Edinburgh in Scotland.
• 43:12
  There's a lot of curly haired little head girls.
• 43:16
  Absolutely saw themselves.
• 43:19
  And I went, oh, that's very good.
• 43:21
  So now my brief is the books that I'm creating.
• 43:25
  It's.
• 43:25
  Yes, it started off in the animation.
• 43:28
  Yes.
• 43:29
  Little girl with brown hair and pigtails.
• 43:31
  And maybe I saw myself in that.
• 43:33
  But each of my characters is supposed to represent a child.
• 43:36
  I love that the illustrations are brought to life through this spaghetti hair.
• 43:39
  But in a sense they could be replaced with any.
• 43:42
  Like a little boy.
• 43:42
  It could be.
• 43:43
  It didn't need to be that little girl.
• 43:46
  It just needed to feel like kids could see themselves in that.
• 43:50
  And that's one of the things in a teaching way that I say if you grab the book and I'm looking at different resources around this, it could be a discussion for teachers like, where was your describe your O
• 44:00
  Spaghettio.
• 44:01
  What, what's something that happened?
• 44:02
  And I found it even in kindies when talking to kindy teachers, they said, oh, thank you for giving us a word, like some sort of refrain to say because we're getting a lot of.
• 44:12
  Not a nice thing about oh, Spaghettio.
• 44:16
  It's much longer than a four letter word and much more fun.
• 44:23
  Yeah, exactly.
• 44:23
  So, oh, thank you for that because we can now say, oh, I had a whoopsie door.
• 44:28
  Oh, Spaghettio.
• 44:29
  So yeah, that's.
• 44:30
  Yeah, that's how that's used.
• 44:32
  Terrific.
• 44:32
  You talked to us about your dog and you said it was a.
• 44:36
  What type of dog was it?
• 44:38
  Is it.
• 44:38
  It's a Pomeranian, so Pomeranian.
• 44:40
  So you had to get your dog in there, into the store.
• 44:45
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 44:46
  That's something that you'll see themed across.
• 44:48
  So my new book will have the dog.
• 44:51
  You'll notice that all the animations have that dog as well.
• 44:54
  So the dog is always a red dog.
• 44:56
  Red Pomeranian of.
• 44:57
  And it didn't matter to me if that was in 2D or 3D.
• 45:01
  I've got a video animation coming out soon.
• 45:04
  It's more of a Pixar version.
• 45:06
  So it's 3D.
• 45:07
  And my goodness, is the dog absolutely adorable in that.
• 45:10
  I went, oh, this is perfect.
• 45:11
  From a.
• 45:12
  From a branding point of view, like Happy seeing kids.
• 45:15
  I said I wanted to bring out a bunch of happy seeing kids.
• 45:17
  I am the author, I am the creator of this.
• 45:19
  But I don't need to be always that in that space of being the headshot.
• 45:24
  But I thought kids need to have something they can grab onto if it's about them.
• 45:28
  And I'm changing the lead character, which I will do will be a boy.
• 45:32
  Sometimes we go.
• 45:33
  Will be.
• 45:33
  Talk to us though about in this current book about the unique relationship between the main character and the dog or it's really two main characters in a way.
• 45:44
  Dr.
• 45:45
  Sabunca.
• 45:45
  It's more that the dog creates that lighter side.
• 45:49
  So the.
• 45:49
  In this story the girl has scenarios which are not really fun.
• 45:54
  Chipping your tooth and falling off the monkey bars.
• 45:57
  And the dog's kind of in the background is a supportive light hearted in all you.
• 46:04
  You gotta have your sidekick, your comedic sidekick.
• 46:06
  So the dog's joining the dance.
• 46:08
  So the dog's there dancing with the little girl in the.
• 46:12
  Oh, Spaghettio.
• 46:13
  So doing that together and in a.
• 46:15
  Let's make light of this.
• 46:16
  So it's.
• 46:17
  The dog always represents.
• 46:19
  This is the lighter side of things.
• 46:20
  This is what we're gonna choose to do.
• 46:23
  And is that the theme of the book?
• 46:24
  Looking at life from the lighter side?
• 46:27
  It's almost like the Monty Python song.
• 46:30
  Yeah, right.
• 46:31
  The lighter side of life.
• 46:33
  Yeah, exactly.
• 46:34
  So I'm coming back to that emotional regulation thing of just going this is.
• 46:38
  This happens to everyone.
• 46:39
  It's.
• 46:39
  It makes.
• 46:40
  It normalizes because kids, they have a way of catastrophizing things and that's okay to be upset about.
• 46:47
  If you fall it over, of course you're going to be upset.
• 46:49
  But it's dwelling on the being upset and feeling like sometimes just being around children, sometimes they can feel like it's hell happening to me.
• 46:59
  As children you're always egocentric.
• 47:01
  It's just natural to you and you need to be.
• 47:03
  It's part of growing is that the central teaching.
• 47:06
  The central teaching is really resilience.
• 47:08
  And it's just in particular.
• 47:10
  And this was an interesting thing.
• 47:11
  I have a friend who's a kindy teacher who said.
• 47:13
  Who pointed that out to me.
• 47:14
  I didn't realize it was resilience.
• 47:16
  And she said to me, susie, do you realize that this book is all about resilience?
• 47:20
  And I said, oh, actually you're right.
• 47:23
  She said, particularly as a kindy teacher and with all the children, she would say I'm having all those children coming out of COVID and they're very anxious and they feel very much oh, they're very worried about things going
• 47:34
  wrong.
• 47:35
  And so they're having a narrative where you go yeah, things do go wrong, but we're going to get back up again.
• 47:41
  Is actually a really good modeling for it's.
• 47:44
  Okay.
• 47:44
  We're going to move on from this.
• 47:46
  So she said that some of that got lost.
• 47:49
  She found in her teaching classroom that kids were very sensitive to things, and maybe that was just an aftermath and maybe it's changing now, but there was that just for that period of time where it was.
• 48:02
  Where much more, oh, I've really got to wash my hands.
• 48:04
  Otherwise something really bad's going to happen to me, which was the case at the time, which makes sense.
• 48:09
  But it's okay now.
• 48:10
  You know, we go to wash our hands, but we're going to be okay.
• 48:13
  You don't have to worry about all the extra germs.
• 48:15
  You don't need to worry about some of the things that they picked up over time.
• 48:19
  Because it was.
• 48:20
  It was.
• 48:20
  We weren't prepared for this globally, for this pandemic.
• 48:23
  It was something that took us all by surprise.
• 48:26
  You think with all the immunizations that we have, we're past having anything like that.
• 48:31
  And, yeah, I think it really knocked everyone out and it did create a.
• 48:35
  Lot of anxiety question because I did an interview with my youngest granddaughter during COVID and I've kept that and someday I'll play it back to her.
• 48:46
  But it was all about how she envisioned Covid and how she felt that people used it as an excuse to not step up and do their work.
• 48:58
  She was thinking about school.
• 49:00
  That's really hard.
• 49:02
  Quite interesting.
• 49:03
  You've talked to us about writing your next book, and I'm curious about your writing process, because knowing that you have this musical mind.
• 49:14
  Tell us about how your mind works.
• 49:16
  Your musical mind works in your writing process.
• 49:19
  I always honor that.
• 49:21
  Like when there's a hook or something that.
• 49:23
  And usually the hooks come to me first.
• 49:25
  So I'll have a hook.
• 49:26
  So O skidio is my hook for my song.
• 49:30
  And I basically never change that.
• 49:33
  I always honor that.
• 49:34
  Like, that's the initial idea and the precipice of the whole thing.
• 49:38
  And then from there, I will find something will.
• 49:43
  I'll find scenarios that lead to.
• 49:44
  How did I come to this?
• 49:45
  So it's, oh, okay, my daughter dropped a glass of milk.
• 49:50
  So you're like, oh, oh, Spaghettio.
• 49:52
  I then went and thought around scenarios.
• 49:55
  And like I said, with, uh, oh, Spaghettio, I used my kids and I remember the day writing down ideas.
• 50:00
  I have a notepad of ideas where they're like, oh, this happened.
• 50:04
  And then this happened.
• 50:04
  And it was my nieces as well that they were giving me scenarios.
• 50:09
  And so I just picked from there.
• 50:11
  Oh, that's a.
• 50:12
  Yeah, That's a funny scenario.
• 50:14
  And then I.
• 50:14
  And it was out of the mouth of babes because they were the ones who suggested them.
• 50:18
  And I created the words from there, and so the rhyme from there.
• 50:22
  And just naturally for me, once it's written, I can usually find a melody that goes with that I find.
• 50:29
  For me, if I had.
• 50:31
  And this is something I even explored as a side thing was I believe so much in the power of music that I was like, how can I work with authors?
• 50:38
  And let me say this on this space, if anyone wants to reach out to me and says, I've got a book, can you write a song for it?
• 50:42
  I'd be really excited about that.
• 50:44
  I think there needs to be more collaboration in this space because I see the power of it.
• 50:47
  And for me, it's just my second language.
• 50:50
  It just comes very easily to me.
• 50:52
  So if I see words that have a rhyme to it, I naturally have a song that just comes to me with.
• 50:58
  And it's interesting you should say that because our second book in our series, Hijinks from the Big Head Folk Music Festival, and it's actually based on a real folk music festival and my day together with three of my
• 51:12
  grandchildren, two of my granddaughters, and my grandson, and we went to this music festival, and it was so much fun.
• 51:19
  And I always thought, oh, wouldn't it be cool if there was a supporting song?
• 51:24
  Because even if you look at the front cover, it has all the musical notes and they're dancing and they're just having a good time.
• 51:32
  Yeah, yeah.
• 51:33
  That's great.
• 51:35
  And kids, they relate to that.
• 51:37
  And that's a special moment.
• 51:39
  No question.
• 51:40
  No question.
• 51:41
  I want to talk to you about success for a moment because we talked a bit about having a book business plan, but I'm curious about delving and having you go back to when you originally wrote your book and
• 51:56
  you brought it to life.
• 51:58
  What did you think success would look like for you?
• 52:01
  And now that you've had your book on the market for a little while, what does success really look like?
• 52:08
  When I began, it was success would have looked like I knew.
• 52:12
  And this is where I can be informed from my music background.
• 52:16
  I know things don't happen instantaneously.
• 52:18
  Like, I know that you just don't come out with something.
• 52:21
  And everyone goes, I have to have this now.
• 52:23
  So there is a sense where I've learned patience, which is fantastic, because I think if you went in this game to accept, expect big dollar signs, you're gonna be very sad.
• 52:31
  Absolutely.
• 52:32
  Yeah.
• 52:33
  So you have to do it for a love of it.
• 52:36
  But I think for me, success looked like even just creating this thing, like to have physically have a book felt so exciting to me.
• 52:46
  That was success at the time.
• 52:48
  And if I could.
• 52:49
  And particularly it felt like all the performances that I was doing, I could have something to sell.
• 52:56
  This is merchandise.
• 52:57
  They've come to the show and they've got this merchandise.
• 53:00
  And this is something like I give stickers for free, but this is something they can go home that was in the show, that then they can take that with them.
• 53:08
  And because one thing is referring people to go to your Spotify, your website, but another thing is to actually give them something that they go home with and that they can do.
• 53:17
  To your point, it's interesting too, because when people.
• 53:22
  I remember you were talking about holding the book in your hands and I remember doing that thing where they say, when the box of books arrives, take yourself opening up the box and the excitement and all of that.
• 53:37
  And that was our biggest video that we ever had.
• 53:41
  Wow.
• 53:42
  Yeah.
• 53:43
  And I thought, except.
• 53:44
  And that's why I like sharing with people.
• 53:46
  I was excited just like you were about holding the book.
• 53:49
  And I videoed it and I posted it, but I forgot to do one thing.
• 53:54
  There was no call to action.
• 53:56
  I didn't have a link where they could go and buy the book.
• 54:00
  I guess what I'm trying to share and have everyone realize you get so excited as a children's book author about holding your book that you forget at the end of the day you'd like to get some sales from
• 54:13
  your book.
• 54:14
  Exactly.
• 54:15
  If you're going to produce a video of you opening your box and the excitement, make sure at least don't do what we did.
• 54:23
  Yes.
• 54:23
  Make sure you produce a link to go along with your book.
• 54:26
  Absolutely.
• 54:27
  And our big thing, I would say.
• 54:29
  And I had to do this for myself because I.
• 54:32
  I have a musical mind, I'm an entertainer and all those things.
• 54:35
  But I'm not.
• 54:36
  I just.
• 54:37
  Marketing's not my favorite thing.
• 54:39
  And that self promotion is always really tricky.
• 54:41
  And talking to different authors and I've gone to different meetups with the authors, it tends to be something.
• 54:47
  In some ways I'm lucky because I have that entertainer side of me.
• 54:50
  So I can talk about the book or bring it to life in a way.
• 54:53
  But some people are more reserved and it's.
• 54:55
  I think one thing that I ended up doing is practicing saying how they can get the book.
• 55:01
  And I think that's really important.
• 55:02
  People.
• 55:03
  Don't you think that's going to Roll off your tongue.
• 55:05
  But when you're in that moment or when you're having to create this post or whatever, having a rehearsed.
• 55:12
  And you can find the book@happy singingkids.com or you can make sure you check out the QR code.
• 55:17
  Or even for me, I have.
• 55:19
  At the end of my shows, I have a little flyer that I give for free that takes them to QR codes that they can.
• 55:26
  That.
• 55:26
  That helps me as well.
• 55:27
  So when I'm talking to everyone, I'll go, when you go home today, make sure you get one of these.
• 55:32
  You can check out my music.
• 55:33
  And I'll say, and there's a free sticker.
• 55:35
  So having that helps me be able to sell it where I feel like, okay, they're walking away with something.
• 55:40
  I'm not just doing a heart.
• 55:41
  And what we did is we actually developed a bookmark and we used a QR code ourselves.
• 55:48
  The beautiful thing about it is my middle granddaughter is the voice of Caboose.
• 55:53
  She actually read the audiobook.
• 55:56
  So when you scan the QR code, you get the audiobook to go with the book.
• 56:00
  And you also get my oldest granddaughter, who's the inspiration behind Caboose, telling the story about how we came up with the original story about Caboose.
• 56:12
  Oh, that's fantastic.
• 56:13
  Yeah.
• 56:14
  Thank you.
• 56:15
  Yeah.
• 56:15
  So QR codes, people should be looking at how they can embrace it.
• 56:20
  Because even when I hand out our business card, if you look at the There's a QR code on our business card, it takes you to our latest podcast episode.
• 56:31
  Oh, that's small.
• 56:32
  Yeah, that's good.
• 56:34
  Yeah.
• 56:34
  Sharing with people.
• 56:36
  Susie and I are saying, don't forget those QR codes.
• 56:39
  They can be very helpful.
• 56:41
  It does a lot of that work for you because people find it cumbersome to remember what is your website, what is your whatever I can say, go to YouTube at Happy Singing kids or like that kind of thing
• 56:51
  forward slash, happy seeing kids.
• 56:53
  That's a lot to do.
• 56:55
  Whereas the QR code just.
• 56:57
  They use their phone.
• 56:58
  It takes them right to it.
• 56:59
  So it is a really quick way.
• 57:00
  I would definitely recommend that.
• 57:02
  Absolutely.
• 57:03
  I'm with you.
• 57:04
  Talk to us a bit more about the role of writing in your life now, because it's interesting coming from a musical background.
• 57:11
  Now you've got this authorship title.
• 57:15
  Talk to us about how the role of writing is now fitting into your life in the grand scheme of things with your musical background.
• 57:24
  Yeah, I do.
• 57:25
  Very big combo of things.
• 57:27
  And anyone who is an author understands this.
• 57:30
  I think that when You're.
• 57:31
  And my business is a little bit interesting in the sense that I do have the entertaining side of things.
• 57:36
  So I find that my day will be filled with.
• 57:40
  I have days that I allow for creativity.
• 57:42
  Doing this is not my full time job.
• 57:44
  I'm also a vocal teacher as well.
• 57:45
  So I'm a full time artist, but I'm doing.
• 57:48
  I've got lots of different hats that I'm wearing.
• 57:51
  And so it's about being, can I say, disciplined, about putting, setting aside time.
• 57:56
  Okay, this time these days are going to be set for this.
• 57:59
  So I'll give myself like a morning or a day where I'm just going to work on and I'll have an idea that I'm thinking about.
• 58:06
  So I'll write the ideas down and then put that as the thing that I want to look at this week.
• 58:10
  If it was like I talked about my phonics book series, like I.
• 58:14
  I'm like, okay, now I'm going to focus on this letter, this character, this last.
• 58:19
  So then I start to look at creating, play around with words with, around that.
• 58:23
  And when I get something that I feel good about, then I'll create the music to it.
• 58:28
  The funny thing is that is it my new process, my old process was just create the song, right.
• 58:35
  And then how can that come into.
• 58:37
  But I'm learning a different way about going about it, which is I write my lyrics first and then I put the song to it.
• 58:43
  You have to be really almost.
• 58:45
  It feels almost selfish, but you have to really lock that time away because if you don't, it's amazing how life catches up with you and people need you from every different direction.
• 58:55
  And it's really easy when you're an artist because as authors you are artists.
• 58:59
  And it's very easy to feel like what you're doing, particularly if you're not getting that paycheck the way that someone does.
• 59:05
  Doing a 9 to 5 job, it's really easy to not see your time as valuable.
• 59:09
  And I think that would be my big thing to authors is.
• 59:13
  Let's pick up on that.
• 59:14
  So what would you say to aspiring children's book authors who are trying to get off the couch and get their creativity down on paper and start creating a children's book.
• 59:26
  What kind of advice would you give them?
• 59:28
  Big advice is carve out time, make time.
• 59:31
  And I think starting off like for me, because I work when I'm having fun and playing and even if it feels a bit daunting to go, oh, I've got to put pen to Paper.
• 59:41
  I really want to do this.
• 59:42
  And I want to put pen to paper, find the thing that can maybe bring to life why you want to do this.
• 59:48
  Sometimes it could be just go for a walk and think about it and allows your mind to just have fun with it.
• 59:55
  Oh, what would this look like?
• 59:56
  And who is this?
• 59:57
  Like all the questions you've been asking me about the character.
• 1:00:00
  What.
• 1:00:00
  Who is this character?
• 1:00:01
  Who's this for?
• 1:00:02
  Think about your audience.
• 1:00:03
  Who is this for?
• 1:00:04
  And what am I trying to aim?
• 1:00:05
  What's my.
• 1:00:06
  What am I achieving out of this?
• 1:00:07
  And then go from there.
• 1:00:08
  And then what's.
• 1:00:09
  What is my hook?
• 1:00:10
  Because even a book, particularly children's books, need to have some sort of what is.
• 1:00:14
  What's happening?
• 1:00:14
  What's your climatic point?
• 1:00:16
  What's your thing, what's your stick kind of thing?
• 1:00:18
  And.
• 1:00:19
  And then carve that out.
• 1:00:20
  And then is there a line that sticks out to you?
• 1:00:22
  Is there something.
• 1:00:23
  So write that down and don't judge it.
• 1:00:25
  I think the big thing is judgment.
• 1:00:26
  We all suffer from feeling like, oh, I'm going to be a failure, or no one's going to like it, or it's not good enough.
• 1:00:32
  And we all have that, so that's okay.
• 1:00:35
  Just write it down.
• 1:00:36
  Write it down.
• 1:00:36
  It's not the.
• 1:00:37
  It's not produced.
• 1:00:38
  No one's seeing it yet.
• 1:00:39
  But you just put this stuff out there.
• 1:00:42
  I've heard of authors because I spent a bit of time looking into this a little bit.
• 1:00:46
  Sometimes I just say just the discipline of just going to pen to paper and just writing whatever comes out in your mind just for five minutes.
• 1:00:53
  And they say that's a good activity to do as well.
• 1:00:56
  But for me, it's about taking the seriousness out of it.
• 1:00:59
  As soon as you start to get serious, it just loses that.
• 1:01:02
  That play to it.
• 1:01:03
  And is that what keeps you going as a children's book author?
• 1:01:08
  I think what keeps me going is the shows.
• 1:01:10
  It's just seeing those children connect.
• 1:01:12
  It's where they feel like you can see their little eyes sparkle.
• 1:01:16
  And you want to draw that out.
• 1:01:18
  That's my big thing as an entertainer.
• 1:01:21
  Now.
• 1:01:22
  I've said to even my friends, I just did a tour recently to Northern Queensland, and I said, it's like me as an author and a entertainer.
• 1:01:30
  It's changed before.
• 1:01:32
  It's like, how can I do the best show?
• 1:01:33
  How can I just bring this to life?
• 1:01:34
  And then now it's.
• 1:01:36
  And trying to get all the bits perfect.
• 1:01:38
  But now I'm like, no, how can I bring them to life?
• 1:01:41
  Like, how can I bring those children to life where they came in as.
• 1:01:45
  However, they're beautifully made, but how can I draw them out?
• 1:01:49
  So I'm trying to find ways in my performances to incorporate them, to affirm them, to make them feel brave, to make them a part of.
• 1:01:57
  I love that.
• 1:01:57
  I love that.
• 1:01:58
  Engaging the reader to take action while you're there.
• 1:02:02
  Yeah, exactly.
• 1:02:03
  And if I can encourage authors.
• 1:02:05
  And that's what you can do when you're reading of your book.
• 1:02:07
  If you're invited to go to a bookstore and do a reading, you make it.
• 1:02:11
  It's about bringing that book to life and the way, connecting in with what, why you created the book, but also your audience.
• 1:02:17
  How can you make them feel so much a part of it that they're more themselves from coming to it, you know?
• 1:02:24
  Yes, absolutely.
• 1:02:25
  So encouragement for read.
• 1:02:27
  Why should readers purchase your book?
• 1:02:31
  It's exactly what I've been talking to you about.
• 1:02:33
  It's.
• 1:02:33
  I want them to feel like they can use the O Spaghettio in their.
• 1:02:38
  Like if they're a parent, they could use that language as a way to describe, oh, that we just had a whoopsie doo.
• 1:02:44
  You can make light of those situations that you could help your child to move on from that and use it as a talking point.
• 1:02:50
  And also because it's.
• 1:02:51
  You listen to the song, it's so catchy, it will get stuck in your head.
• 1:02:54
  My apologies.
• 1:02:55
  But also you'll enjoy it.
• 1:02:57
  You'll enjoy the journey of doing, of singing the song, of seeing the book come to life.
• 1:03:03
  It's just a different way for children to feel a part of a book, that they can see themselves in it.
• 1:03:08
  That's terrific.
• 1:03:10
  Susie, final thoughts.
• 1:03:12
  I'm curious, is there anything you'd like to share that maybe I haven't asked you?
• 1:03:17
  One thing I will say, and again, maybe this informed the whole power of music and literacy and those types of things is one of the beautiful opportunities that I've had over the last couple of years.
• 1:03:27
  And I think it's really important to give to your community and for habit, seeing kids, I connected in with radio lollipops, which I believe is an international thing.
• 1:03:36
  They work in hospitals and some beautiful volunteers who go in there and do the radio and then they go through into the wards and they sing and they tend to just talk with kids.
• 1:03:47
  And I saw the healing power of music and I.
• 1:03:50
  I took my girls and we went in there and we'd just sing and you could see the children really come to life for me.
• 1:03:57
  Just takes it away from the business of oh, I need to make money and makes it more.
• 1:04:02
  No, this is something giving back as authors.
• 1:04:05
  If I can encourage authors, if they're looking for ways to have their book go out there, this is not a hard sell.
• 1:04:10
  But take it to your local community.
• 1:04:12
  Where are places where people want to hear your stuff, like hospitals?
• 1:04:16
  They would love to have people to come through and just read and just talk and connect.
• 1:04:20
  And I think that's a beautiful way.
• 1:04:21
  If you can incorporate some of that as well.
• 1:04:24
  It brings real meaning behind what you can do.
• 1:04:26
  So that's something that I did.
• 1:04:28
  Susie, thank you so much for being a guest on the children's book Authors podcast Adventures in the Heart.
• 1:04:35
  Your generosity of time and insights.
• 1:04:38
  Wow.
• 1:04:38
  From a musical background will significantly benefit aspiring authors and readers.
• 1:04:45
  We promise to provide our audience with links to Susie's website, her social media and her book.
• 1:04:52
  And if you've enjoyed the episode, please hit the subscribe button to listen to future episodes and give us a five star review.
• 1:04:59
  And feel free to share this episode with anyone inspired by or who enjoys hearing about Susie and her children's book, O Spaghettio.
• 1:05:11
  Thank you, Susie.
• 1:05:13
  Thanks, Papa Rick.