Latest / On the Same Page: A KCPL Podcast / Chapter 5: A Big Day for Tiny Worlds at the West Virginia Book Festival

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Chapter 5: A Big Day for Tiny Worlds at the West Virginia Book Festival · On the Same Page: A KCPL Podcast

0:03
Good morning, good evening, good afternoon,
0:05
good wherever you are. Welcome back to another episode
0:09
of On the Same Page, a KCPL podcast.
0:13
I'm Evan. And I'm Tanya. And we
0:16
are your co-hosts for this podcast.
0:20
And today we've got an exciting episode.
0:23
I'm looking forward to seeing how people react
0:28
to this one because I think it's really fun. Me too. I've been perusing the
0:31
website for this author/artist,
0:35
and I'm so excited to get to talk to them. Yeah. And I mean,
0:38
talking about the Book Festival in itself is just kind of a, you know,
0:43
a fun experience because it's a long day, but it's always a
0:47
fun day when we get to do the Book Festival.
0:50
And so it's also just an exciting season
0:54
and time of the year. Like, fall is here.
0:57
I mean, fall starts earlier every year, it seems like, as far as like your
1:01
pumpkins pumpkin spice season and,
1:04
you know, those Halloween decorations at the store, all of
1:08
those fun things. Like, when this episode comes out, it will be
1:12
in full swing. It will be fall. And that means it's one of your
1:15
favorite times, Tanya, because it's spooky
1:19
season and spooky reads and spooky movies and
1:23
all that fun stuff. My Halloween decorations are already up.
1:27
I am not surprised by that at all.
1:31
And speaking of spooky reads and spooky season, we're going to talk
1:35
to an author today, but we also want to go over like who
1:38
all is going to be at the Book Festival this year.
1:43
And I'm just going to start right out of the gate with
1:47
R.L. Stine. R.L. Stine is back at the Book Festival.
1:52
He was here several years ago and he's coming back.
1:56
And so if you are a fan of Goosebumps or anything spooky,
2:00
he's done some YA, he's done some, you know,
2:03
doll— he's branched out and done more than just Goosebumps.
2:07
But he's going to be here. And so we're all looking forward
2:11
to that. We also
2:15
have Craig Johnson. There's a series
2:19
I'm trying to think of off the top of my head that he writes.
2:23
Longmire. There you go. Longmire.
2:26
He's the author of Longmire, and he'll, he'll be at the book festival.
2:30
We also have Kate Quinn.
2:34
She just came out with a book that was, you know, I saw making
2:38
its rounds on the TikTok world earlier this year
2:42
for the Astral Library, and that's her latest
2:46
release. It'll be, it'll be fun to see what she has to share.
2:51
And then there's Another main
2:55
one, Margot Lee Shetterly, the author
2:58
of Hidden Figures, which is a big thing
3:02
here in West Virginia because of Katherine Johnson.
3:05
And that movie was big a couple years ago. And so
3:10
the author of that book, Hidden Figures, is going to be there as well.
3:13
So I think these are all big names for different
3:17
reasons. I love the Hidden Figures movie. It was good.
3:20
I'm good for— I'm always about a story where, you know,
3:25
the protagonists are fighting against the norms and
3:29
bucking the system, and that's what those ladies did
3:33
100%. And so, yeah, I think
3:37
it was a great movie, and I'm sure it's a great book.
3:41
And last but not least for authors that are coming to the Book Festival,
3:46
we have the one that's going to be our guest today. Which is Rosalie
3:51
Hazlett. She's an illustrator and author whose
3:55
work celebrates the hidden wonders of the natural world, but not just anywhere
4:00
in the natural world. In her book, it's the Appalachian
4:05
Mountains. She also has one called Watercolor in Nature,
4:09
which is a beginner-friendly guide to, you know, getting started
4:13
in watercolor and painting
4:16
things in nature and maybe, you know, stopping to look at the things
4:20
that sometimes we overlook and see them in a different way.
4:24
She's here today with us. Welcome, Rosalie. Thank you so
4:27
much for having me. What an honor to be not only included in
4:31
this lineup for the Book Festival, which whenever the names started to come out
4:35
alongside mine, I had a little bit of like, what? Why did
4:39
they pick me? But I'm just so grateful that they, the organizers,
4:43
choose to represent, you know, West Virginians as well as the super famous
4:47
people. I'm really happy to be on
4:51
the show today. Yeah, well, I mean, as you know,
4:54
typically people in West Virginia, we're very loving
4:58
of other folks in West Virginia, and so we
5:02
want to support that. And I will tell you, just last
5:05
week in my book club, I was telling them about
5:09
the book festival, and one of the ladies said to me, she said, oh,
5:13
one of my favorites is going to be there. And I said,
5:16
oh yeah? And she said, Rosalie Hazlett.
5:20
Wow, so that's so cool. And she— you probably
5:23
will meet her. I guarantee you she will, uh, be at your, uh,
5:26
presentation. And, uh, so people,
5:30
people love you. Oh, well, I can't wait to meet her
5:34
too. So we're gonna, uh,
5:37
talk a little bit about like kind of your journey as an
5:41
artist and illustrator and kind of what got
5:44
you, uh, started. So can you tell us a little bit about that and Sure.
5:49
Yeah. So I consider myself primarily an
5:53
illustrator, but I've also started to write my own books.
5:56
My first book came out in 2021, but still that was kind of like,
5:59
it's, you know, tutorial focused. So I
6:03
didn't really consider myself an author all the way up through that.
6:06
And then I think when my second book came out and
6:10
I pitched it as a primarily illustrated book, it was going to
6:14
be like just minimal text all pieced together by these illustrations and
6:19
Then as I was working on it, I just realized like I had more
6:23
things to say than I thought I had to say, and it seemed like I
6:26
needed to write more. So I feel like throughout the process of writing my
6:30
book, second book, Tiny Worlds: The Appalachian Mountains, that's when I really felt like a
6:33
shift to where I started to pour my
6:38
creativity into writing as well as imagery.
6:41
But I've always loved both. Just, it was
6:45
more of like personal practice, the writing, and art was more of
6:48
the like public-facing thing. So from the time I was really little,
6:52
I loved painting and drawing, painted all sorts
6:56
of things. It wasn't just nature, but just really felt like that was,
7:00
that was my happy place and that was my,
7:04
my place to shine. Always kind of wanted to be an artist,
7:08
but actually I really wanted to be an artist, but you know,
7:11
it seemed like a very unpredictable path, but I just kind of kept Kept
7:16
at it, and throughout my whole childhood, I would keep sketchbooks. I'd also
7:19
keep journals. I journaled every day, and I would often illustrate my
7:24
journal entries. So it's fun to look back now that I've kind of accidentally
7:27
gained this new title of author in addition to illustrator.
7:31
I can look back and see that I've been writing my whole life,
7:34
even if it wasn't like for others or it wasn't formal
7:39
in any way. It's cool to see that this actually
7:42
is very natural to me to pair pictures words together.
7:47
So my journey looked like doing art and
7:51
writing as a kid and then figuring out
7:54
like, oh boy, I need to decide what to do with my life. And I
7:58
really want to do art. And I feel so fortunate because I
8:02
have a very creative family and they always were cheering me on.
8:06
And there was— even when I doubted that I could make it, they were like,
8:10
oh, you got this, you got this. And I just have so
8:14
many friends for whom that has not been the case. So yeah,
8:17
shout out to my family. And I hope
8:21
to— now that I have a child, I'm a new mom, I'm like,
8:25
wow, I really want to pass along that gift
8:28
of like trusting your child, that like if they're excited about something and
8:32
they're willing to work hard, like believe in them because that's—
8:36
they need that in order to, to actually make it happen. So went
8:40
to school in West Virginia at West Liberty University in the northern panhandle.
8:45
And I'm from northern part of the state, currently live in Elkins, have for the
8:49
past few years, but I grew up in the northern part of
8:53
the state. And yeah, just went to a small local school and
8:57
studied graphic design. And then while I was there, just really like
9:02
steered all of my projects towards more illustration.
9:05
So even if they were like we want you to design this
9:09
thing, and everybody else was using computers or like digital
9:12
illustration. I was like, what if I scan in my painting?
9:16
And then like, so I was always trying to find ways to bring it
9:19
back to where I felt like the joy
9:23
of creating for me came from, which was like tactile paint
9:27
on paper. I don't know, how much more do you want to hear?
9:31
No, no, I mean, I think it's really interesting because,
9:34
you know, I guess I never thought about the illustration,
9:39
like illustrator as a career outside of like,
9:42
you know, children's books and like being illustrator and like drawing or,
9:47
you know, in some of like cover arts and stuff like that. Like I
9:51
never thought about it like, you know, you started in graphic design and then
9:56
illustration was your, you know, kind of your driving
9:59
force, your passion. And I was looking at some of the things
10:03
like that you're involved with, like you have like the Smith You
10:07
have illustrated for the Smithsonian, Washington Post,
10:11
like the US Fish and Wildlife Service, like,
10:15
you know. And so I never thought about like illustration as like a career
10:19
that would go all those places. But I mean, it makes perfect sense.
10:23
It's just something people don't think about when they think of, you know, graphic design.
10:27
I've seen all kinds of things where there's been illustrations, but I've never actually
10:31
thought like, where do these come from? Yeah, illustrations are everywhere.
10:34
Yeah. And unless you think about it that way, you just
10:38
kind of move through the world and you just think, oh, that's like a cool
10:41
little picture. Like I think of the Virginia license plates that have like
10:46
the wildlife on them. They're like specialty license plates and some illustrator out
10:50
there, uh, that, by the way, I would love to do that. So if anybody
10:53
here listening is connected, that's a dream of mine that's
10:58
not yet realized. I would love to draw a critter for the license plate.
11:01
But yeah, illustrations are everywhere and I think
11:05
as As long as you— for me, it's all been all about like connecting
11:09
with people that are doing interesting things and then really just
11:13
with all of those collaborations, like figuring out how can I elevate what they're
11:18
doing? Because I'm not a scientist. I don't have a background in biology. I love
11:21
to be outside and I've learned a lot through just being outdoors and
11:26
observing myself. But, you know, there's so many
11:30
fields where They're doing amazing things, but they're not artists.
11:34
And so if you are an artist in that space, then you get to
11:37
learn all this interesting stuff about what they're doing and you get to elevate
11:41
their project. So it's, I think a lot of my career
11:45
has been just thinking about like, what sounds cool
11:49
to me? How can I reach out to someone that works in that
11:52
field or is doing that interesting thing? And most of
11:56
the time I pitch myself to people. So I think a lot of people look
11:59
at my resume or my website and they think, oh wow, like she,
12:02
how did she get so lucky, like, work with all these big
12:06
names. But most of them, I just reached
12:11
out to and get told no to all the time where people just don't
12:15
respond. But then, you know, every 20 times someone does
12:18
respond, and those things add up, and then they know people. And it's
12:23
fun to just kind of think about your career in terms of like, having agency
12:27
and just kind of following your curiosity and seeing
12:31
what it leads to next. I thought it was really cool to
12:35
read your blog and about like your trips to Ireland and
12:39
how that the connection of the Appalachian Trail and your writing is really funny,
12:43
like especially when you're talking about being gifted
12:47
the stomach virus or whatever. Oh yeah. Yeah. While you're
12:52
on your trip. And I saw that you were going to do a
12:56
residency in France, I think, or like a class.
13:00
Yeah, yeah, I'll be teaching a workshop in France, um,
13:03
next June. And yeah, I'm really excited about that.
13:07
I— it's a company that works specifically with painters,
13:10
and they organize all the logistics, and then you prepare a
13:14
week's worth of curriculum, and then you come and you
13:18
teach and you eat amazing food and drink so much wine. So I'm really
13:22
looking forward to it. So in all of these things
13:26
that, that you do, like, what is your process,
13:30
like your creative process that you go through when
13:34
you're, when you're coming up with these things, especially now that you mentioned you have
13:37
to pitch yourself too? So like, you know, does that, is that involved in the
13:41
career? Like, how does all that work? Oh man, there are just so many,
13:45
so many parts of the process. I don't know if it would be helpful to
13:49
talk about like an average work week. So I've been, this is my 8th year
13:52
doing this full time. And so things have come and gone and changed. Changed throughout
13:56
that time, but currently I spend about a day
14:01
and a half just working on behind the scenes wholesale of
14:04
my art products that have cool nature stuff on
14:08
them that I've painted. So that is, I would say,
14:12
and I like to share this because I think it's useful for all
14:15
creatives to hear that, like, the books are not really
14:19
where I make much money. I make some money on them, which is awesome.
14:22
I'm very grateful to be published and all of that. And collaborations
14:27
I make a little money off of. Sometimes it's pro bono. But selling
14:32
art products is mostly how I fund my passion projects,
14:36
and I consider books to be my passion projects. So about
14:39
a day and a half or so is spent just shipping
14:43
orders to different brick and mortars. I sell to a lot
14:46
of bookstores. So you'll notice if you go into a bookstore, there are a lot
14:50
of books, obviously, but there are also things like stickers and greeting cards and art
14:54
prints and tote bags and my work fits in well with that
14:58
type of shop. And then I'll
15:02
spend usually, well, you know, being a new mom,
15:05
my time is limited. So I use every little
15:09
minute of my baby's nap time to usually write.
15:13
So in the mornings during his nap, I will like
15:17
not look at any screens, just like have my little notebook
15:20
out, which took a while to get in that habit of like morning notebook
15:24
journaling time, but that's become so crucial to my process.
15:28
Um, and it's not like I have real like big goals for what I'm going
15:30
to write every day. And it's not like I'm necessarily working on any
15:34
specific project during that time, but I just kind of like check in with
15:38
myself every morning. Think about like,
15:42
how are my energy levels? What do I need to do to take care of
15:44
myself? Because I know my creativity won't be in place unless
15:48
I'm like drinking water and seeing a friend and things like that.
15:52
So checking in with myself, and then I usually make a list
15:56
of things that I'm excited about for the day. And if I don't have anything,
15:59
whether that's work or otherwise, then I like try to think about, okay, what could
16:04
I do today to make this day feel like
16:07
worth living? That sounds so dramatic,
16:10
but, but I'll, I'll put things down. Like if it's
16:15
like a big shipping day, like all day I'm going to be just processing a
16:17
big order or something, I'll, I'll like write down 30 minutes
16:22
of sketching or something like that to kind of create some balance.
16:25
And then often during that writing time,
16:29
I will end up working on a project,
16:32
like the written aspect of a new project, just because I'm like
16:36
already there. I'm in the right headspace, the coffee's flowing.
16:40
And so I really like not having pressure
16:44
on myself during that time, but just like committing to show— showing up every morning
16:47
with my notebook And then maybe it's a 10-minute writing
16:51
session. Maybe it takes, it ends up being like a couple hours and that,
16:55
that feels great when I like hit that flow and just want to keep going.
16:58
But it's never like I have to sit down and,
17:02
and really crank something out. So yeah,
17:05
so that's every day. And then there's shipping day and a half a week usually.
17:09
And then I am in my studio. So I have a little storefront downtown
17:14
in Elkins and I've been here a little over a year.
17:17
And I'm usually working on like a
17:21
couple new paintings that could be turned into prints or something
17:26
like that. So that's usually like a day. And then
17:29
I write a monthly newsletter and I have a little online book club called the
17:34
Nature Art Book Club. So those things are really like, I would say,
17:38
marketing focused because I don't do social media much anymore.
17:43
So I've really shifted to putting a lot of intention into
17:47
my newsletters. So Those are, those are some things that I do. And then I'm
17:50
open usually on Saturday, Friday and Saturday. So people come in
17:54
and chat with them. I don't get much done when they're in and out,
17:58
but it's really fun. And especially in the summer when there are a lot of
18:02
festivals and stuff, it's, it's really fun to just like have my doors open
18:06
and people coming in and I work on a painting and get to talk
18:09
to little kids about what kind of art they like to do. That's my favorite
18:12
thing about, I think, having this shop is letting especially kids peek
18:16
in on the process and they all get so excited.
18:20
So I saw in your, your intro video on your website,
18:23
which is beautiful, by the way. I don't know. I don't know if you made
18:27
it or you had someone. My next-door neighbor is an extremely
18:32
acclaimed filmmaker. If you've heard of the film King
18:36
Cole or Heroine,
18:39
they're on Netflix. I've watched that one.
18:42
Yeah. So they live next door to me and he,
18:46
Curran Sheldon, needed to test out some new equipment.
18:50
So he asked if he could do a little video of me and I was
18:52
like, that's amazing. Sure.
18:55
It's beautiful. And I love the section where you talk about teaching
18:59
kids. Yeah. Your— how to do watercolor
19:03
and like your process and things like that. So that's great. Yeah.
19:06
Yeah. That's another thing I do is I don't do it super regularly,
19:10
but I kind of do like little teaching bursts where I'll Um,
19:14
teach workshops sometimes in public schools around
19:18
the state, sometimes in conjunction with like, um, a book
19:22
talk or signing or something. So your store's called Meander,
19:26
right? Yes. Okay. So you talked about like a lot
19:30
of how you, you know, um, are these little projects and you'll
19:34
work on things as you come across them. And one
19:38
of the things we were talking about when we were planning this is like
19:42
the idea of like, we always hear about writer's block, people who
19:46
are writing. And so as an author, I'm sure you've experienced that when you're doing
19:50
your author side of things. But is there such a thing for like
19:54
when you're creating other types of art, like illustrating? Is there like illustrator's
19:59
block? Like, is that, is that a thing? Or, you know, we're just curious
20:03
your take on that. Yeah, I, I definitely think it is a
20:07
thing. I think most of the time It's not knowing
20:11
when to walk away from a project, and that's not in a negative way.
20:14
It's just like when to say, like, okay, this is done. Like,
20:18
this is probably to a place where it needs to be, and I'm gonna walk
20:22
away. Something that helps with that are deadlines.
20:26
So if I don't have, like, a deadline
20:30
on something, and a lot of my work that I make for products
20:35
I don't have a deadline. It's just me making stuff that I think is
20:39
fun based on what I find outside. And those
20:42
usually, I don't have a lot of, I think the pressure feels low
20:46
because it's just like me making it for mostly
20:50
for me and then seeing if other people will like it. But it's not like
20:53
there's a client or like a book deal deadline or something.
20:57
But then usually I like to have a big
21:01
project. Like I mentioned, the passion project. I like to have like a big thing
21:04
kind of like simmering in the background and So usually
21:08
since 2020, that's been a book, you know,
21:12
like always kind of having a book that I'm either working on or
21:16
like looking for that spark of an idea, which can take
21:20
so long to come to when you like find an idea where you're like,
21:22
oh yeah, like I want to spend 2 years working
21:26
on this and then more time marketing it. It takes a while and like
21:30
it's a big commitment once you decide. I recently decided
21:34
on my 3rd book. I think, as long as, uh,
21:37
somebody wants to publish it. But yeah, so I've been working on that for about
21:42
3 months. And with that type of project, I don't yet have
21:46
a deadline because I don't have a book deal yet. I haven't started submitting it
21:50
to publishers, but I do have an agent. So I give myself
21:55
deadlines like, girlfriend, you got to get something out in the next 2 weeks.
21:59
Like, even though you like feel embarrassed of like where
22:03
it's at or something like that, you just have to get it out there and
22:06
like get over yourself. And so with illustrator
22:09
block, um, I think going for walks helps a lot,
22:12
like just getting a change of scenery and then coming back to it.
22:15
And usually like if there's more that needs to be done, then I'll know like
22:20
after I've looked at other things for a while. And then also
22:24
knowing when to get feedback when you're stuck,
22:27
and then, and then just knowing when to ship it. And that,
22:31
that's something that my dad also an artist, and he
22:35
taught me to ship things. Like, you can deliberate over it
22:39
forever and you're gonna go insane, but at some point you just gotta send
22:44
it and know that the next time you can do better, but this was
22:47
as good as you could do right now. I know when we were—
22:52
before we started recording today, you had mentioned like
22:55
it had been a while since you've been on like a book tour and been
22:58
doing these kind of things. And so, you know, the book festival is
23:02
coming up and you're gonna be there. So What are you looking forward
23:06
to about the Book Festival? And it's your first time, or is it your first
23:10
time at the Book Festival? Yep. Yes, it's my first time.
23:13
I'm so excited. I think the lineup is awesome. I personally
23:18
am very excited about the used book sale. So a— that's
23:24
a big hit. Yeah. And a little tidbit
23:28
about Elkins is that we have not had an actual
23:31
library for 5 years because it flooded in 2021. And so
23:35
like most of the books were damaged.
23:39
The library has to be rebuilt. It's taken forever for
23:42
funding to come in. So we currently just have a little
23:48
house that has 2 rooms and not
23:51
very many books. And so I am just
23:56
like hungry for books. So I'm really excited
23:59
about these book sales. Well, my presentation is going
24:03
to be about how to take a book from that spark. Well, I think
24:08
I am not like— I haven't finalized it yet, but I think I want to
24:10
start with like how to know. Like I was just saying, like making a book
24:14
is such a huge time investment and it's gonna
24:19
follow you around for better or for worse for several years.
24:22
Like books, when you're in one while you're working on it,
24:26
they just live in your mind. And so you
24:29
have to really want to live in that place. And so I
24:34
think I want to talk about like how I've found that seed of
24:38
an idea that feels right, and then kind of
24:42
just share all the nitty-gritty details of like starting
24:45
with the idea and then going all the way through publication
24:50
and marketing and talk about what I've
24:53
experienced. So I've only published 2 books. So there's so many more,
24:58
you know, people that have a lot more experience than I do. But I
25:01
do think I've learned a lot with each book. And I
25:05
just, I want to be very, very— with all my talks that I give,
25:08
I want to be generous. But I feel like with this one, because I'm speaking
25:11
to a room full of writers, like, I know Y'all are going
25:15
to be excited to hear like the ins and outs. So I'm just going
25:19
to like put it all out there. And I mean, that sounds like a
25:24
good presentation. I mean, I'm sure that people who are
25:28
fans of yours will also be there, so they'll just want to hear from
25:31
you whatever you have to say. But, but there will also
25:35
be people there who are writers and who do come to this for, you know,
25:39
inspiration and, you know, advice. And so
25:43
It sounds like a really cool presentation, especially with all
25:46
of the media that you deal with, like because you are an illustrator
25:50
and how that goes into your writing and your process. I think it'd
25:54
be great. Yeah. Do you mean like pairing the
25:58
text with the illustrations and like how I digitize things and stuff? Yeah.
26:01
Yeah, I can definitely touch on things like that and just how to— how— I
26:05
don't know. I think one of the hardest parts of a book is staying
26:10
motivated. And so I have like come up
26:14
with a couple sort of like outlines that I've gone back to when
26:17
I worked on each book that's like,
26:21
here is basically what you need to do next. And so I want to share
26:25
that too, even though, you know, an illustrated book is very different from like a
26:28
novel. I think there are a lot of crossover skills.
26:34
So we, we do different segments on this podcast.
26:38
And so we have— so we're going to transition into one of
26:42
those. And it does involve things you've already mentioned.
26:46
And so for this overdue conversation, we were inspired
26:51
by the idea of all the book merch that's out there
26:54
that seems to be growing, like, you know, accessories for Kindles.
26:59
There's like, you know, different— like, I can find
27:03
like t-shirt designs that are for book lovers and special bookmarks
27:07
and, you know, merchandise.
27:10
And we know that you do, you know, your own merchandise
27:14
and Um, so like, how does your creating
27:19
merchandise fit into your roles as an author and artist and,
27:23
um, you know, that whole thing? Because you said
27:27
you work on that some specifically, like the shipping and like maintaining that and
27:32
like— Yeah, well, I think of, um, creating the
27:36
merchandise as like funding myself to be able to do more risky
27:40
projects and like really take the rest of my time and work
27:46
on books that are more niche. Like, my Tiny Worlds of the Appalachian Mountains book
27:50
is very regional, and I knew it wouldn't sell huge
27:54
amounts. It sold well, and I'm happy about that, but it's like never going
27:58
to be on like big bestseller lists or anything because it's so regional.
28:02
And my third book, which I won't mention yet, but it's
28:06
also extremely niche because that's what I love. That's what I get excited
28:10
about. And I think that some of the best books that I've gotten the most
28:14
out of have been just because the author fell in love with something and they
28:18
wanted to really dig into it. It's not because it's something that
28:22
can be sold in every bookstore all over the world. So that's
28:28
kind of one of the things is like figuring out a way
28:31
to fund myself to write and illustrate for
28:35
books. And then I also think it plays in really
28:38
well with connecting with booksellers
28:42
because— and libraries— because I
28:46
wholesale these art products to lots of
28:50
different shops and bookstores. And so whenever I do have a new book come
28:53
out, they're excited to carry it because they already have my stuff there. They can
28:58
like make a little display where it's all cohesive. And then if they host
29:01
me for an event, not only can they sell my book, but people will also
29:04
buy art, which often they'll spend more on
29:08
the art than book because books are just like, you know, they're kind of a
29:12
low-dollar item. So I think it works,
29:16
it works really well together. And I think you don't have to be like
29:20
an amazing visual artist in order to create
29:24
some things that could accompany a book. Or yeah, I think
29:28
like making a fun little tote book, tote bag. I remember, oh, what was
29:32
it? Emily Hilliard. Are you familiar with Emily Hilliard?
29:36
Don't think so. She's an Appalachian author,
29:40
and I went to one of her book talks and she had tote
29:44
bags that said Friends of Coleslaw, and people
29:48
were snapping those things up left and right. And her
29:52
book, like, she was writing about, like, Appalachian food and things like that.
29:55
So, and she's not normally a visual artist, but she
29:59
was able to put together this cool little thing and it just It
30:02
creates also a great gift to gift someone like a book by an
30:06
author and a cool little thing that they made. And so
30:10
I think they go really well together. And even if you don't feel comfortable
30:14
doing any sort of design, you could always collaborate with an artist friend to put
30:18
together like a little mini series of stickers or something. And also
30:22
those things can really build awareness about what you do.
30:25
So like whenever I do a book talk workshop, Um,
30:29
sometimes I speak at schools and things. I will almost
30:33
always give away stickers to people that attend, and it's like
30:37
a nice quality sticker, but it has my name on the, like, little on the
30:40
bottom. And I just see that as like a cool form of a business card
30:44
because then they're gonna have that. They're gonna look at their sticker on their water
30:47
bottle all the time and see my name, and then they might recognize it when
30:51
my book comes out. I love the Stay Slimy.
30:54
Greeting card, I think it was, made me laugh. And anytime I get
30:58
a card from someone that's like by an artist
31:02
or illustrator, I always look at who made it. Yeah. So like,
31:07
it's like a glorified business card,
31:10
but way cooler because it's something that's like fun and functional. I mean,
31:15
one of the reasons that we, we, we wanted to talk about that,
31:18
Tanya brought this up to me and I didn't even know this was a thing,
31:23
but there was a situation where Um,
31:26
someone tried to trademark a phrase that was like going
31:29
popular in like the BookTok world, and they tried to trademark
31:34
it and they weren't successful because it's like, it's, it,
31:37
it was Hot Girls Read. And you know, they were trying
31:41
to, you know, make that a trademark, uh,
31:44
and you know, that was all on the internet, but like went crazy
31:49
and was like, you can't do that, man. You know,
31:53
I mean, that's especially after it's already been a trend.
31:56
Like if you were the first person say it, mate, and like make a bunch
32:00
of materials about it, maybe. But if it's already a trend and then you just
32:03
slap it on a tote bag, you cannot claim that. No,
32:07
no. And I mean, you know, the one thing about there being so
32:11
much like merchandise around books is that it gets more people talking about books
32:16
and like, you know, letting people know that like, you know,
32:19
these— all these people are still reading. Because I,
32:23
I don't know what I was looking at the other day, but I saw someone
32:26
talk about like, you know, that, that people don't read anymore. And it's like,
32:31
yes, they do. Uh, it just may not be as in your face
32:35
as it once was. Uh, but, you know, like, people still do read
32:39
and people love reading. And that's why these merchandise things are,
32:43
you know, popping off and, uh,
32:46
going crazy online. Yeah, I've never
32:50
made any like book-specific merch. But maybe I
32:54
should. Maybe you should. Listen, I'm telling you, Kindle inserts
32:58
are a huge market. Like, I don't even know what that is.
33:02
So like, and they have Kindle cases you
33:06
could buy that are clear on the back and people will put
33:10
like, you know, designs in their Kindle case. And so
33:15
like, you know, it's, it's like a lot of people
33:18
will do stickers and make their own, like, you know, it's kind of like putting
33:22
stickers on like laptops and stuff like But you'll do it on the
33:26
Kindle. And so people will make inserts and just sell
33:30
them online and like, you can buy my Kindle insert.
33:34
And that's a huge market right now. Um,
33:38
wow. Yeah, completely book merchandise. Seems like it would be easy
33:41
to make because it's just like a flat little piece of paper, right?
33:45
Yeah. Yeah. And it's— and you just size it right. Like,
33:48
yeah, I mean, you could, you could, you could totally start. I mean,
33:51
I'm sure you— I mean, I think you could come up with some great Kindle
33:55
inserts. So, okay, all right, well, or I was thinking recently,
33:58
I've been thinking about like what types of different items
34:02
do I wanna— because I'm always coming up with new like designs for
34:06
things, but then like what could I apply them to? So I also have never
34:10
made bookmarks. That sounds like fun, and I feel like I'm always looking for more
34:14
bookmarks around my house. I should just make my own and sell them while
34:18
I'm at it. Yeah, I mean, that could be a whole new, you know,
34:21
a branch on your, on your website and things you sell is like book merch
34:25
or, you know, just that kind of, kind of thing. I mean, people, people love
34:29
it. You could probably find some good puns to put on bookmarks too, because I
34:33
noticed you do some puns. I do some, but usually I outsource
34:37
the puns. I've only come up with a few myself, but I have a couple
34:39
friends that are really— they have lots of good puns, so they get all the
34:43
credit. That's another form of collaboration.
34:47
You're just collaborating with people. You're using the people you know and,
34:51
and, uh, just collaborating. It's, it's fine. It's fine.
34:55
But yeah, there's, there's a lot of book
34:58
merch out there, uh, and so you could, you could definitely get into
35:02
that market. I'm excited about it. Maybe I'll try to come up with
35:06
like one new thing that's book related for
35:10
the festival. If I can get around to that, I have about a
35:14
month, so. I mean, that could be something.
35:17
That would be fun. You could kick it off there and like,
35:20
you know, this would be your new thing. Who knows?
35:26
Well, thank you so much for joining us today.
35:30
We're so happy that we got to take a moment
35:33
and talk to you, and we look forward to having you
35:37
at the Book Festival, and maybe we'll see each other there.
35:41
Yeah, so you'll both be there. We both will be there. We are going to
35:45
be in the marketplace area. There's like
35:49
a special like table that's for the Kanawha County Library, usually over in the corner,
35:53
and we'll be there making announcements on the speakers. That's what Tanya and
35:57
I are going to be doing, like, you know, making announcements and just
36:01
doing fun stuff like that. So we'll be there for the
36:04
library. Yeah, thanks so much for having
36:08
me. This was really fun. I want to mention the survey
36:11
again. We have a survey,
36:15
so please go to our website,
36:17
kcpls.org, click on the banner or scroll
36:21
down to the bottom and click on KCPL Podcast on
36:25
the same page. It's all there. Click on that, and then our survey
36:28
is right on that page. You can take it.
36:33
And so, and next month, we'll give you a little teaser.
36:37
Next month is November. And we're
36:40
going to do a little bit talking about The Hunger Games. So we're going
36:44
to have that going on next month on the podcast. So tune
36:48
in and listen, listen to that. And we might have
36:51
another special episode in November. We're still trying to get the pieces of that
36:55
together. So I can't talk about that yet, but we'll
36:59
do something special in November one way or another.
37:03
And so Thank you. Thank you for listening.
37:07
This has been another episode of On the Same Page, a KCPL podcast.
37:12
I'm Evan. And I'm Tanya. And we'll see you
37:15
in the next chapter.