Latest / Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors Podcast / How to Self-Publish and Market Children’s Books: Mary-Jean Harris on Creativity, Community, and Storytelling

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How to Self-Publish and Market Children’s Books: Mary-Jean Harris on Creativity, Community, and Storytelling · Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors Podcast

2:33
My name is Mary Jean.
2:34
I'm the author of Pixie Dusted Ottawa, a fairy adventure in Canada's capital.
2:39
Thanks, Mary Jean, for appearing on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors podcast.
2:45
Mary Jean has mentioned she's written a couple of children's books, but today we're going to focus in on her newest release, Pixie Dusted Ottawa.
2:55
And I look forward to our conversation.
2:57
I love the title.
2:58
Before we get into the details of your book, Mary Jean, can you tell us what being a children's book author means to you?
3:07
Yeah, for sure.
3:09
So I really want to inspire kids with my books and make them feel creative and having fun.
3:16
I also really want to tie it into my princess party company.
3:20
I guess maybe we can talk about that a little bit later.
3:23
Absolutely.
3:23
And so, yeah, it's really about bringing characters to life and.
3:28
And inspiring kids to be the best version of themselves.
3:31
And I love writing.
3:32
I've written a lot of novels before I got into children's book, and so it's a creative outlet for me as well.
3:38
I'm curious about the inspiration behind your book.
3:43
So was there a specific inspiration that you finally said, I've got to write this book.
3:49
It's just bursting to come out of me.
3:51
What was the inspiration?
3:53
I can't think of an exact name thing, but my mentality behind it is that there aren't really a lot of books that takes place in Canada for kids.
4:02
And in particular, like Ottawa, that's the city where I grew up and where I live now.
4:07
And so I thought it'd be really cool to have sort of kids tour guide almost to the city, but also to make it more whimsical.
4:13
So there's a fairy.
4:14
The main character, Calla, she's the fairy who goes throughout Ottawa to find her pixie dust.
4:20
And because I have a kids entertainment company with princesses, fairies, superheroes, I thought it would be really cool to incorporate that into a kid's book.
4:28
So a whimsical fairy going through the city and encouraging kids to see their own city and to just have a kind of a fun adventure to read about.
4:38
That is terrific.
4:39
And you know what, Mary Jean, I was excited about talking to you today because I like to talk to authors because a lot of times what happens is we as authors, and I'm a children's book author with two
4:51
published titles.
4:53
And what you don't realize is publishing your book is just really the beginning.
4:59
I call it like the starting pistol of your children's book business, because now you've got a product and now you need to bring it to life.
5:09
When you have a product, you have to sell your product.
5:11
We're not all independently wealthy and we can just give our book away for free.
5:16
We have to generate some revenue to pay for the publishing of the book.
5:20
I love what you've done, and I want to get into that more because hopefully I know there's a lot of inspiration on what you're doing.
5:29
So I want to talk to you about your children's book business as a children's book author, because you've come at it to me from a different approach.
5:40
And first of all, we'll talk a little bit about your book offers.
5:44
So you have an ebook and a soft cover book through Amazon.
5:49
Do you use ingramsparks for all the other online retailers?
5:54
Yeah.
5:55
So I have just the paperback on ingramspark, and then I did a large print run with a local company as well, just so I have books to sell myself.
6:03
Are those soft cover?
6:05
Yeah, they are.
6:06
You haven't done a hardcover yet?
6:09
No, just because of the terrible things that have happened with my previous book with the hardcovers.
6:14
It was a mess and I'm still working that out.
6:17
So I.
6:18
My previous book, Princess Lyria's last collection, I had it on.
6:21
I have it on Amazon and all that.
6:23
And then I put it on IngramSpark for hardcover and the paperback.
6:27
I ordered some copies.
6:28
When I got the paper, the hardcover, it looked right on the outside.
6:31
But when I opened it, all the pages were out of order.
6:34
And it's taken me over a month to get them to correct it and fix things.
6:39
So I'm a bit hesitant about jumping into hardcover for the next one.
6:42
I want to make sure I have the files perfect.
6:44
Okay, no problem.
6:45
And we'll get into that because I.
6:47
I love discussing these things so that all of us, like ourselves, we are also on ingramsparks.
6:55
We haven't done a hard copy cover because the only problem with ingramsparks is the pricing is quite high.
7:01
And so the retail on your hardcover book has to be quite high just to make a good margin, a decent margin.
7:09
So when I ordered copies just for myself, I just wanted to get a few just to make sure they were all right.
7:14
The shipping was pretty much the same amount as the books because they don't have, I guess they don't print it in Canada.
7:20
Both.
7:20
One is the US that comes with a lot of extra shipping costs for printing books.
7:25
I was able to find a local printer and they are very reasonable, and it came out really beautifully.
7:32
I am focusing a lot on.
7:34
And that's your soft cover book.
7:36
Yes, Softcover one.
7:37
I am focusing a lot on selling local.
7:39
Re getting it into bookstores, just bringing copies there myself.
7:43
Okay.
7:44
And, yeah.
7:45
And I looked into printing locally ourselves and I noticed I had to get up into quite a large number to for a local printer that matches Amazon single pricing.
7:57
I still find Amazon quite reasonable and their quality for a single book seems to be extremely good.
8:04
Thank you for sharing them.
8:06
We're going to talk about your website a little further in the interview, but however, I noticed your website and this is where I'd like to jump in because I find that you're unique.
8:19
And I've Talked to almost 100 children's book authors and most of them don't have a core book business.
8:27
Their book is their business.
8:28
But a lot of times they don't have a website or most of the time they're promoting it through Instagram or Facebook.
8:36
And that seems to be where their starting point.
8:39
And I noticed for you that your children's books are not the core of your business.
8:45
You started your website before you started your children's book business, is that correct?
8:51
Yeah.
8:51
So really for the children's books, I'm just piggybacking on the website of my other company rather than making a separate website.
9:00
So the main website I've had for many years for Fairy Tale Princess Parties.
9:05
And then when I made the children's book, I'm calling it in print, Fairy Tale Stories.
9:10
Yes.
9:10
I just gave it a separate page and created new pages on my current website.
9:14
And I love that it's such a natural fit.
9:17
I'm going to delve a little deeper into your books because your books actually exemplify really what your business is and I love that it's a reflection.
9:28
So tell everybody the name of your website and the name of your business and then we'll build on that through to your children's books.
9:37
Yeah, for sure.
9:37
So the website is ottawa princessparty.com and then the company is Fairy Tale Princess Parties.
9:43
So I've been running that for the last eight years.
9:45
And the children's book part just came.
9:47
Let's see.
9:48
I said that earlier this year, actually, when I released the first one.
9:51
That is terrific.
9:52
And I encourage everybody.
9:54
We'll have links to Mary Jean's website in our show notes, but I encourage everybody to go to the website.
10:02
It's so much fun.
10:03
I love your television interview.
10:05
You, you just played the part beautifully and you got the announcer so engaged in the launch of your book.
10:13
That was very neat.
10:14
And I love the picture of all the princesses that you have involved with your company.
10:21
Are all those princesses actively involved in your company?
10:27
Yeah, we have different performers.
10:29
Some of the pictures are of current performers or some are past performers, but we have all those characters.
10:34
I've got a basement full of costumes, and I have about 15 to 20 people working for me, depending on the time of year.
10:40
People go to university, come back.
10:42
So.
10:43
Yeah.
10:43
And then with the children's book.
10:44
So for the first one, Princess Lyria, I have the whole costume and wig and everything.
10:49
She can go read her own story for Pixie Dusted Ottawa.
10:52
I actually have a local costume designer who's.
10:55
She was supposed to finish it a few days ago, but she's almost finished.
10:59
As soon as we get that, we'll get pictures of her with the book and everything.
11:02
That's terrific.
11:04
Talk to us about as a children's book author now.
11:08
And I guess your books have piggybacked onto your business, but it's just one way to keep your business vital, and it speaks to your audience and is a natural extension for your business.
11:24
So was there a strategic plan in that, or did you just say, I've got these children's books and they've got to come out of me?
11:32
What happened?
11:34
Yeah, I did come at it from the point of view of having it as part of fairy tale princess parties.
11:39
But to be honest, I can't remember exactly what made me decide.
11:43
Oh, I want to have a subset of my company doing children's books, but I love writing.
11:48
So I've been writing fantasy novels and short stories for a very long time, and.
11:52
But I've never written for a younger audience.
11:54
I guess I'd say my books are mostly young adult or adult books, But I do story time.
12:01
When me or my performers do birthday parties for kids, we do story time.
12:05
That's one of the first things that we do when we enter a party.
12:07
So, for instance, Cinderella will come, Schulz, tell the kids her story in an engaging way.
12:12
And so I thought it would be awesome if I had my own princess story, because when I grew up as a kid, I love the Disney princesses and fairies and all these magical things.
12:23
And it was like continuing that tradition for what I loved.
12:27
And then I know that from doing princess parties that kids really love, too.
12:32
So not really trying to replace Disney, but it's like another aspect that kids would really enjoy that's similar to that.
12:40
And I love it because I interviewed a guest.
12:42
His name is Richard Reiman, and he calls himself the Audiobook wizard.
12:48
And he dresses up like a wizard, like from Harry Potter.
12:51
He's written two children's books around a blind princess.
12:56
And what he does is his business is built around enhanced descriptive audiobooks for blind children or visually impaired children.
13:07
And he said, you know what, Rick, I think your second book, Hijinks from the Big Head Folk Music Festival, would be a perfect enhanced descriptive audiobook.
13:18
So within about a week or so we're going to actually launch our first enhanced descriptive audiobook for blind children.
13:25
I would never would have thought of that.
13:27
I just love sharing the stories like yourself, where you've had this business.
13:32
It seems to me that children's books would be a natural extension and allow your business to grow in different ways than you maybe thought possible.
13:41
Is that happening?
13:43
It's still early on.
13:44
I feel like I'm still getting traction, getting known, but I have time and I'm going to be doing a lot more in person events in the city.
13:52
I feel like, especially with my new book, Predestined Ottawa, because it's specifically for Ottawa.
13:57
I have quite a few events booked for the summer that I'm going to be attending, like markets or things like that.
14:03
And it's nice because sometimes the table fee is quite expensive.
14:07
But if I say we have characters for.
14:10
With a company and for let's say a farmer's market, did you want to have a special princess meet and greet?
14:16
And then it's like an exchange.
14:18
I get a table for free to sell my books.
14:20
They get a princess fair to interact with the kids.
14:22
So is a nice way to partner with local places too.
14:26
That is a great idea for those listening.
14:29
I just love what Mary Jean's doing, a little what I call horse trading.
14:33
And you scratch my back, I scratch your back and.
14:38
And everybody gets something special from it.
14:41
So thank you for sharing that.
14:43
I want to talk to you about your publishing approach.
14:46
There's generally four types of publishing methods.
14:49
There's the traditional publishing, where you get a literary agent and they find you a publisher.
14:55
And then there's independent publishing, which is generally a small press publisher.
15:01
And then there's hybrid, which tends to be quite expensive because what you're doing is hiring a company to do all the work and bring your book to market.
15:10
And then the last one is self publishing, where you set up your own publishing company and you publish the book.
15:17
You're the general manager and you do as much as you can, but you also hire professionals, but you control the whole process.
15:26
So tell us about your publishing approach?
15:30
Yeah, so I'm doing self publishing, so I have the fairy tale stories and then I'm running everything, getting illustrators patterns and things myself.
15:40
So for my first book, I got a separate illustrator and formatter.
15:46
For this one, the illustrator also did formatting.
15:48
She did the type setting and then I actually did the formatting myself.
15:51
I realized that I could do it myself in Canva and save a bit of extra money.
15:56
I was able to do that part myself.
15:57
So I do have a different illustrator for both my books.
16:00
Just because the Pixie Dusted Ottawa one is specific to Ottawa.
16:04
So I wanted to get a local illustrator.
16:06
So she's actually seen these places that she's been drawing, which is a nice touch.
16:10
Was it hard finding a local illustrator?
16:13
Most of the time I talk to my guests, they have a hard time finding a local illustrator.
16:19
Most of them, like, for example, our illustrator.
16:22
I live in western Canada and I tried to find a local Alberta illustrator and I had to go to actually all the way to London, England to find an illustrator.
16:34
One of my guests recently was on.
16:36
She's in the United States.
16:37
She had to go to Italy to find an illustrator.
16:40
So today with the World Wide Web, it makes it easy.
16:44
Tell us about your local illustrator.
16:48
How did you find her?
16:49
I found her on Instagram.
16:51
I think I was just looking for local artists and I kind of had a particular vision of like how I wanted the book to look.
16:59
I didn't want it too different from my first book, which was a different illustrator.
17:03
For my first book, the illustrator is from Indonesia, actually, so she's definitely on the other side of the world.
17:08
I wanted something similar just so they don't look too different.
17:12
There's a fair number of illustrators who do children's books in Ottawa, so I had a few to choose from.
17:18
But I really liked her style the best.
17:19
And I saw that she had done some drawings of fairies before, so I thought, okay, I like how she does that.
17:25
Yeah.
17:25
I just really reached out to her and she was.
17:27
It's nice that you can get somewhere local because probably once in a while you can actually go and have coffee and.
17:34
Yeah, yeah.
17:34
To be honest, we have only met online.
17:37
Oh, okay.
17:38
We technically could.
17:39
We are within driving distance.
17:41
So that's in the future.
17:42
I'm sure we'll meet up now before.
17:44
I move on because I want to come back to your publishing for a moment.
17:48
Can you tell us when it came to the publishing aspect of it, knowing that you're self published, what was your biggest challenge or frustration as you went through the publishing process.
18:00
To be honest, at the start, it was fairly straightforward after I chose an illustrator and got that process started.
18:08
But really the marketing and has been challenging.
18:11
I find just getting the book known and especially online, just because there's so many children's books out there, I thought it'll be easier to sell to people who are already following my princess party business.
18:22
But to be honest, even that's been challenging.
18:25
I feel maybe once I've gotten a few more books out, it might be easier to get better known.
18:31
But yeah, so far I'm just kind of taking baby steps in terms of the marketing aspect.
18:36
I've got a pretty good handle on publishing and I definitely learned a lot about formatting because I did like the sizing of all the pictures and everything for this book.
18:46
And also for my first book, I released a French version.
18:49
So I got a French translator because my French is not very good.
18:53
But in Ottawa, because like where the government is, there's a lot of people who speak French.
18:58
And I thought it would be great to have a French translation of it.
19:01
So.
19:02
And I love that.
19:03
You know what?
19:03
In our first book, the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear, my oldest granddaughter, her last name is Dumoulin and other grandfather and her father are originally from Sherbrooke, Quebec.
19:16
She's bilingual and we took her on a trip with us and we went to Montreal and she was our translator and it was phenomenal.
19:25
One of these days I wouldn't mind doing as you did, converting into to French and having some fun with it.
19:31
And so I formatted the French one.
19:33
Actually it was nice to have my first book done by a formatter and then I can kind of see the process.
19:39
And then now I can.
19:40
I'm able to take the illustrations from the illustrator and format it myself moving forward.
19:44
So saves a bit of money.
19:46
And I also enjoy doing it.
19:47
It's.
19:48
It's a fun, fun process putting it all together.
19:50
Good for you.
19:50
Because if, you know what, if you have that talent and that passion and the interest to do it, and I just want to make a sidebar note here is that I've noticed a lot of my American children's book
20:03
authors get their books translated into Spanish because Spanish, such a large part of the American culture.
20:12
We talked about your website, but I want to get into it a little bit more.
20:16
I always ask the old was it the chicken or the egg that came first?
20:19
But we know that your website came first because it's based on your core business.
20:25
How did you come up with the name Ottawa Princess Parties first.
20:30
The thing is, it's actually Fairy Tale Princess Parties, but the website is Ottawa Princess Parties.
20:35
Okay.
20:35
This is a bit of a.
20:36
I guess it's just because there's so many Fairy Tale Princess parties, let's say in the US or the uk.
20:41
So the website has the URL for Ottawa.
20:44
I didn't come up with the name because in 2018 I took over the company from the previous owner.
20:50
And so she had set it up and she was having another kid and she just didn't have time for the business.
20:55
So I took over.
20:56
Then before that I was just working for her.
20:58
I kind of took over and I kept the name and I did expand to many other kinds of characters, like superheroes, mascots.
21:07
But to be honest, I just really love the name.
21:09
So even though we don't just stop her processes, it's.
21:12
It stuck.
21:13
Okay, terrific.
21:15
And so how are you driving?
21:16
Because we're going to get into the a little bit more about what some of the challenges you talked about.
21:22
How are you driving traffic to your.
21:24
Website for the Princess parties?
21:26
There's very few companies in the city.
21:29
A lot of it's organically, people find it.
21:31
So if they type in, let's say Princess Parties in Ottawa, we're the first one that comes up and also posting on social media.
21:37
So have a fair number of people following us on Instagram, for instance.
21:42
Then we also do special events throughout the city.
21:44
So different businesses, they can hire us for mean grants.
21:49
Pretty much every month we go to different Boston pizzas to do character events.
21:53
I'm kind of hoping that as people learn about the business for characters, then they'll also see the picture books and they that can be tied in as well.
22:02
You talked about your social media.
22:04
Talk to us about how you're using your social media to promote your books.
22:09
Yeah, so far I've really been posting about information about books, pictures and also including some characters.
22:16
For my first one, Princess Lyria, we have her as a character.
22:19
So we've been doing some story times with Princess Lyria and I've been posting some pictures of Lyria with the book and meeting people at special events.
22:28
So yeah, I've really just been continuing to post.
22:31
I've been doing some collaborations with other authors as well, like highlighting maybe different books to a certain theme.
23:07
I'm going to be doing some more of those coming up.
23:09
I mentioned one about Canadian books having different local authors just to highlight their books that are based in Canada.
23:15
I've done another one with that are this animal themed.
23:18
So my first book had a lot of birds in it.
23:20
So I was part of that collaboration where we had lots of different books with animals in them.
23:27
So there's definitely a lot of children's book authors on Instagram.
23:30
So I feel like it's kind of nice to work together with them to cross promote our books.
23:35
So I'm just going to continue doing that and tying it into my princess company as well.
23:41
Okay, terrific, Terrific.
23:43
And it's interesting because I had a guest on recently and she was telling me a story.
23:50
I was doing my research on her.
23:52
I noticed she had over 11,000 Instagram followers.
23:56
11,000 thousand.
23:58
That's phenomenal.
24:00
And I said to her, tell me your story about the social media aspect of it.
24:05
And she says, rick, I'm a little humble.
24:08
And I said, what do you mean?
24:09
She said, I have a good friend who's an author.
24:12
And he told me about his story when he launched his book, and he said, he's sold up to 500 copies.
24:22
And she kind of looked at him sideways.
24:25
And I said to her, you know that the average book sells between 100 and 500 copies over the lifetime of the book.
24:34
And she said, when he told me 500 copies I had of 11,000 Instagram followers, I thought, I've hit the jackpot.
24:42
And she did her social media thing on Instagram and promoted her book.
24:47
And the day she turned on to sell her book, the next morning she got up and she said, you know what, Rick?
24:57
Over the next month, I only sold 120 books.
25:01
She was thinking that she was going to blow her friend out of the water about him bragging about his 500 books.
25:10
And to your point, and I tell this to aspiring children's book authors listening, is that it's not generally a path to fame and fortune right out of the gate.
25:20
You definitely have to work at it.
25:22
And that's why I'm so proud of how you're handling your business, is because you've got this core business and you're building your book business on top of that.
25:30
It's really important that people understand that even with 11,000 Instagram followers, it doesn't guarantee you thousands and thousands of books sold the moment you put it on Amazon.
25:44
Yeah, definitely.
25:45
Yeah.
25:45
I thought a lot more people might jump in to get the book who are already following us, but haven't had that yet.
25:51
And I think we really just need to get known more for the children's books in addition to the princesses, because people know us as Elsa or Spider man coming up to their party.
26:01
They don't know us as children's book authors.
26:04
And are you now trying to figure out a way to incorporate every time you have an event?
26:09
Have you done a marketing sell sheet?
26:12
What have you done to promote the books when you're, when you send your people out to do an event?
26:18
Yeah, so for most of our parties, we don't, we don't really market it there because they're just private birthday parties.
26:23
But we have been setting up some other events.
26:25
For instance, like at the Indigo, the bookstore, we've been doing some like signings.
26:30
I did one.
26:31
So far we have another one coming up as well as one of the libraries.
26:36
So those are more events that are like just for the book.
26:39
And then when I have table events selling my children's book or my novels kind of just doing through there.
26:47
But I am a bit reluctant about being too pushy with my, with my clients for the parties.
26:52
On the booking inquiry form, I do have under the party add ons, I added these books.
26:57
I said you can add on this to give to the birthday card.
27:00
So far that hasn't really gotten much.
27:02
Interest, but okay, yeah, I make a recommendation.
27:06
Sure.
27:07
Yeah.
27:07
So first of all, just so a lot of our guests are from the United States.
27:11
So I want to make sure our guests from the United States are who are listening, know that Indigo in Canada is like Barnes and Noble in the States.
27:19
So just to have clarity there.
27:22
The other recommendation I may make for you is that perhaps a bookmark you could put into the birthday kit promoting your books.
27:33
And we have a QR code on the front of our children's bookmark.
27:38
And what it does, my middle granddaughter is the perfect voice for caboose.
27:44
And you get the free audiobook with the bookmark.
27:47
So this might be something for you to consider is it's a pretty soft sell, but you give away a bookmark as part of the birthday party package and it just promotes your books in a soft way.
28:02
Yeah, for sure.
28:03
We do have our autographed cards.
28:06
So they're just little square cards with the picture of the princesses or the superhero ones and then the characters sign the bat.
28:13
Okay.
28:14
So yeah, even incorporating something like a QR code with on one of those the storybooks.
28:20
Check out this.
28:20
So yeah, there's definitely a good even.
28:22
On my business card is that on the front of our business card is our QR code and that takes you to the latest podcast episode.
28:31
And on the back is actually our two titles of our children's books, plus the plushie that we sell of Caboose, different ways of going about doing it in a subtle way, but it's still.
28:43
You've handed out like a billboard, a mini billboard, in a way.
28:47
So good for you.
28:48
You've been at it for a while now.
28:50
In terms of the princess side of the business, was there a specific person or event that motivated you to actually finally say, after these years of being in business, you know what?
29:03
I've got to write this children's book.
29:05
Not a particular event, but I think it's more just like something that I was just like, inspired to do because I was thinking back to how I loved the Disney princesses and stories as a kid, and I thought
29:19
it would be really cool to have a younger princess.
29:21
As for a storybook, most of the Disney princesses, I guess, really all of them, they're in their teens or early twenties.
29:29
But I thought it would be nice to have some younger characters so that kids could relate to them a bit more.
29:33
The characters I have, like Princess Lyria, she's seven years old.
29:36
Calla the Fairy, I never specified her age, but she's 7 or 8.
29:41
And so it's not that kids can't relate to the older characters.
29:44
I certainly did.
29:44
I loved them growing up, but it's just like a different.
29:47
Different kinds of books.
29:49
And so I thought I would give that a try and kind of make my own sort of princess world and fairy world.
29:56
My plans are to have many different princess books being released.
30:00
And tangentially to that, to have different fairy books released that are based on Canada.
30:06
So Pixie Dust at Ottawa is the first one.
30:08
I have another one that's written that I am still working on it.
30:12
I got an editor look at it.
30:13
So I'm making some changes now.
30:15
It's so to Fairies at Rainbow Sugarbush.
30:18
And so I'd like to kind of continue the Canada theme for the fairy books.
30:23
And I think that'll be a nice thing because kids will be able to learn about their own home and they'll actually be able to go out and see these places in real life, as opposed to maybe the fantasy
30:33
kingdom where they're not going to see it in real life.
30:36
But I like both.
30:37
I like both.
30:38
And I love what you're saying because when we wrote our first book, like, I co authored it with my oldest granddaughter, what was interesting about it is that we have a fictional town in the book where Caboose was
30:50
born, and it's called Big Head.
30:53
And Big Head, there's a town in Alberta called Cammore in the Rocky Mountains.
30:58
All of our stories, and we've written 38 stories, all take place in Camore, Banff and the Bow Valley.
31:06
We don't call them that.
31:07
We call Canmore Bighead, but that comes from.
31:11
Canmore is Gaelic.
31:13
It translates to big head.
31:15
So that's how we came up with our name.
31:17
I appreciate what you're doing, and that's one thing that we've done, and I love what you've done, is that we have references to the local history through our story.
31:27
And some people have written.
31:29
If you go to Amazon, you read some of our book reviews, they say they love how the history has been woven in to our stories.
31:38
I love what you're doing.
31:39
You're doing exactly the same thing.
31:41
You're taking local Ottawan area history and weaving it into your children's books.
31:47
Thanks.
31:47
Yeah.
31:47
I've grown up in Ottawa my whole life, and it's nice because these are places that I've.
31:52
I've been to myself.
31:53
I also included some local stores that I actually partnered with so that they would sell the books at their store.
31:58
So it was like a.
31:59
Another one of those sort of scratching your back.
32:01
I'll scratch yours.
32:02
Yeah, I love it.
32:03
I approached them before publishing the book, and I said would be interested in having a spread of your store in the book.
32:10
And then.
32:10
Then our fairy visits, and then we'd ask if you'd be able to sell the book at your store.
32:15
So I have three that have been agreed to that.
32:52
That's fantastic, because I noticed one of them was a toy store.
32:56
Yeah.
32:57
Yeah.
32:57
So they're.
32:58
They've got the books in their store now.
33:00
I love it.
33:01
So I want to talk a little bit about your character development.
33:04
You've got Callie, is it?
33:05
Kelly.
33:06
Kala.
33:07
Kala.
33:07
Kala as your main character.
33:09
And then she has her supporting cast, her brother Ash, and her rabbit friend, May Belle.
33:16
Tell us about how that whole interaction development started for Calla.
33:22
I wanted to have just a kind of fun fairy that kids could relate to.
33:28
And her crown has trilliums on it, which is the flower for Ontario.
33:34
So that was also another thing that I wanted to incorporate.
33:38
Maybelle.
33:39
I really love rabbits.
33:40
We used to have a rabbit.
33:41
And in all my children's books, there's a rabbit that people can find.
33:45
So in the princess ones, she's just in the background on every page, and.
33:49
But in this one, she's actually more of a character.
33:52
That's cool.
33:52
I always loved having a princess or a character with an animal companion.
33:56
It was always a fun thing.
33:59
And then Ash, her little brother, he's kind of just a mischievous little brother who likes Retriex on her.
34:05
So kind of want to give a fun sibling dynamic there.
34:08
This story is not heavy on the plot because it's mostly like a tour guide as opposed to a really like plot heavy story.
34:15
Would you say that's the main theme of the book?
34:18
Yeah, kind of exploration.
34:20
And the theme of the book is more.
34:22
I guess the purpose of the book is to get kids exploring their city, being creative.
34:28
And I included things in the book like asking questions.
34:31
Like for example, for one of the bakeries, can you find those with sprinkles on them?
34:35
Or they have your own fairy picnic.
34:37
And we have some ideas of things.
34:39
And so it's encouraging kids to actually not just passively read, but actually engage in some activities too.
34:48
Fantastic.
34:49
I love the book because I've only been to Ottawa once and it was a vacation.
34:55
My wife and I thought it would be special to go to Ottawa for Canada Day.
35:00
And it certainly was a very memorable vacation for a lot of reasons.
35:06
And that if anyone has never been to Ottawa, it's such a phenomenal city.
35:11
There is so much to do.
35:14
And that's what I loved about your children's book.
35:16
When I started reading it, I thought, oh my God, okay, Mary Jean's been to everywhere I was as a tourist.
35:24
And I remember my wife and I drove into Ottawa.
35:27
We stayed at downtown Ottawa at the Sheraton.
35:30
And I said to my wife, and I'm a long distance runner.
35:34
And I said to my wife, I wonder if there's a running room here.
35:38
And I looked out my window of the hotel and I was looking right down at the running room and I thought, oh my goodness.
35:46
So I said, I gotta go.
35:47
So I went down, I went and bought a new pair of runners and the running room.
35:52
Every Wednesday and Sunday they take you out for a run.
35:55
I went in there and I said, do you have a group run?
35:58
And they said, yeah, it's this day and at this time.
36:02
And we ended up running down the Rideau Canal with local Ottawa folks and they took me under their wing.
36:09
And I got.
36:10
Then when I went back with my wife, I said, oh, now I said, listen, we can rent bikes and go down the Rideau Canal and, and do that.
36:17
And that's what we did.
36:19
Very special.
36:20
But your whole book, that's what I love about it, is it definitely captures so many of the highlights of the city of Ottawa.
36:29
So thank you for sharing that.
36:31
It was definitely hard to pick and choose which things to include.
36:35
I did want to include the local businesses, even though they're not historic sites, just because I wanted to partner with them so they would sell the books.
36:42
I do think it might be nice to do another book in the future.
36:46
Still in Ottawa, but like a winter version.
36:49
One thing we have is Winterlude, which is like a big winter festival in Ottawa.
36:53
There's ice flies and the Rideau Canal is all frozen over for skating.
36:58
And it's actually the longest skating rink in the world in Ottawa.
37:01
So it will be fun to do a winter version of Pixie Dust in Ottawa as well, because there's so many different things you can do in Ottawa in the winter as well.
37:09
Absolutely.
37:10
And I loved what you did with your book.
37:12
And just for those listening in, is that Mary Jean did a very unique thing.
37:18
She did a glossary towards the end of the book which was like a two page overview of all the things she talked about in the book.
37:26
It's like a roadmap.
37:28
You could just use that in itself to pick up many of the highlights of Ottawa.
37:33
So nice touch.
37:34
That was great to see.
37:36
Was that done?
37:37
Talk to us about that.
37:39
How did you come up with that idea?
37:41
Yeah, I wanted to do like a map, like looking down at the city showing like a little pixie dust trail.
37:47
The illustrator took it in a different way.
37:49
She made it so that it was like a kid drew it or Kala the fairy drew it.
37:54
And so it's more just like a little stylized picture of each of the locations showing where Kala the fairy went and how she did it.
38:01
It wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but I think it turned out well.
38:04
And then it did.
38:05
Yeah.
38:05
Kids can even put little check marks.
38:07
Oh yeah.
38:08
I've been to museum, I've been to the Parliament.
38:10
And that's one touch I always talk.
38:13
To, especially when you're a self published children's book author.
38:18
And again, I just try to share lessons learned or observations that I've made.
38:24
And one thing I love and in our books we've added activity pages at the back of our books.
38:30
And I'm pretty proud of that because we actually want to encourage children to write their own story.
38:36
So we've got a couple of pages where you get to write your own story.
38:40
And then we have in Railroad Tracks, because of the caboose's name, there's picture frames made of railway tracks where you can actually draw your story.
38:50
And so that's what we've tried to do.
38:53
And I look at your book and I Think, oh, this is fantastic, because you've taken it even to a higher level.
39:01
And you should be very proud of that, because I want to talk to you a little bit about your activity pages, how you sprinkle this pixie dust throughout the book.
39:11
And with your activity pages, I talked to authors about making sure they add a book plate.
39:18
And I noticed you actually added two book plates, in a way.
39:22
And that's at the front of the book.
39:24
You have where they get to draw what they think they envision themselves as of the other thing that I loved about what you did, and we do have at the front of our books a book plate it says
39:37
this book belongs to.
39:38
And then the person purchasing the book gets to write the child's name and then maybe a message.
39:44
And you've taken it a bit further because you've added in what's your favorite color and what's your birthday.
39:51
That's a nice touch.
39:52
Yeah.
39:52
It was like to be build in like a little passport.
39:55
One thing is that at the Children's Museum in Ottawa, they have this passport where you go along and get these stamps.
40:01
They've had that ever since I was a kid, too.
40:03
And they still have it now because I went recently when I was writing the book.
40:06
I want to see.
40:07
Okay, does the Children's Museum still look the same as it did when I was a kid?
40:10
And to be honest, there are some changes, but it's actually very similar to when I was a kid, which is nice.
40:15
And they still have the passports.
40:17
And so I wanted to have a little passport at the start.
40:19
And then kids can draw themselves.
40:21
They can circle what fairy power they want.
40:24
So it's not.
40:25
The book is not a workbook, but there's definitely a lot of work they can draw in.
40:29
The book definitely interact.
40:30
I definitely want to have it more of an interactive thing.
40:32
They can actually be creative themselves.
40:36
And at the back, I kind of just left some blank pages for doing their own adventure.
40:40
Maybe if they go to different places in Ottawa, they can draw pictures of it or things like that.
40:45
Absolutely.
40:46
Good for you.
40:47
Now that we know you're a prolific writer and children's book authorship is relatively new.
40:54
But not writing isn't new to you.
40:57
Talk to us about your insights into how you see your writing development and your writing process for more children's books.
41:06
Yeah, so I.
41:07
I've actually written quite a few, and I.
41:11
The process of actually writing it is actually pretty quick for me, like when I may just make notes for ideas that I have, and then I write it all by hand, Just on.
41:20
I have so many just scrap coloring pages.
41:23
So I just write them at the back of these kids coloring pages.
41:27
And.
41:27
Yeah, so I just write it out by hand.
41:30
I type it up, and then I do a lot of editing myself before actually getting it to an editor.
41:36
Yes.
41:36
But I have so many ideas of stories, it's kind of hard to pinpoint which ones do I think are going to be the most worthwhile to actually follow through on.
41:43
It's amazing because you know what?
41:45
When I started this whole children's book authorship, at the time, I had one grandchild and her and I were very active in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.
41:55
And I'll never forget the day that she said, can we write a story?
41:59
Because we had taken so many pictures and from her daycare, they always gave her either she could take a stuffy with her.
42:06
Like it was either Georgia, which was a rabbit, or George, a bear, and they were brother and sister, and they came along with clothing and a suitcase, and we would take them on our trips.
42:18
And it was a lot of fun.
42:19
But I remember her saying, papa, can we write this story?
42:22
And we wrote our first story.
42:23
And then you know what she said?
42:25
Can we write down?
42:27
Because we went and bought a journal from a farmer's market.
42:30
She said, can we write down a whole bunch of ideas of all of the stories, of all the adventures that we've done?
42:36
And we ended up doing a bookstorming idea where we did like you're talking about.
42:40
We wrote all these ideas down and we've converted 38 of them into.
42:45
Into stories, not into books.
42:47
Because as self publishing can be a little expensive, I got to hit the lotto Max, Mary Jean, before we actually bring them all to life.
42:56
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
42:58
I'd love to bring all these to life and kind of slowly working through them.
43:01
I have my first illustrator working on another book right now, and then I'm editing my Sugarbush Pixie Rock, which is on a maple sugar.
43:09
That's so cool.
43:11
We previously talked about your business, your book business plan, but let's delve a little bit more into the success that you had envisioned.
43:21
I know you talked a little bit about it through this conversation, but take us back to what you thought would be your book success with your children's books and what it's turned out to be.
43:35
I guess at the start I thought people who were already following us for the company, my preference company, would be coming engrossed by the book.
43:45
And I'm realizing that, okay, no, it's a much more of A long term process and it takes a while to get known as a children's book author.
43:52
And even if I've written books for young adults and adults, it's not the same audience at all.
43:57
It's kind of getting known in a new niche and I'm still really inspired to continue to write tied into my company.
44:04
And I have so many ideas for more books, but I think I've been learning to be more.
44:09
More patient and just realize that yes, it's a long term process, but it's still definitely worth it.
44:15
What would you say is the biggest difference between launching your children's book and launching your second?
44:22
What's the biggest difference for you?
44:24
Yeah, I guess now I've kind of realized that I really need to do all my own promotion and just because I get it off on Amazon doesn't mean anyone's going to see it.
44:35
Yeah.
44:36
For this one though, I'm learning that tie into doing things locally is a lot more profitable.
44:41
I think it's good to get known at local events and I've been getting the book into various bookstores on consignment and even though they just take a few copies, it's nice to have it at local stores.
44:54
I've been focusing more on that for the second book.
44:56
Just doing more things locally.
44:58
I was looking at other places to sell our books and a lot of authors have told me you have to think outside of traditional independent bookstores or Chapters Indigo or Barnes and Noble, you have to think outside those.
45:14
And I said what do you mean?
45:15
And they said when I write books on nature and plants and all that, and they went to garden centers and the garden centers took their books and are selling them.
45:26
And I thought, oh, my wife and I went on vacation to Jasper and we stayed at the Fairmont Hotel.
45:33
And anyways, I went to the bookstore and I had brought a book with me and one of our plushies and I went into the bookstore and I said, oh, I noticed you sell children's books.
45:45
And they said yes.
45:46
And they said but we don't make the buying decision here.
45:48
And I said oh.
45:50
And so they gave me the contact person.
45:53
And now we're in three of the Rocky Mountain, Fairmont hotels, Jasper, Lake Louise and Bamboo in the gift store in the hotel.
46:03
And so I was thinking for you there might be a couple of hotels in Ottawa that have gift stores that might just support your book.
46:11
Especially this latest one which is phenomenal on the area of Ottawa.
46:17
Yeah, that's a really good idea.
46:18
I have been thinking about getting into different stores.
46:21
So for instance, I'm still waiting to hear back from them.
46:22
But the children's museum and the art gallery, they're actually featured in the book.
46:25
And so I've been trying to get it in the bookstore in the Ark.
46:28
They still need to approve of it, though.
46:29
I hadn't actually thought about hotels, but I definitely wanted this to be a book that is not only good for locals, but also tourists.
46:35
It's a fun thing for their kids to follow as they're touring around the city.
46:39
So, yeah, what's amazing for us is that we've gotten.
46:43
I think I'm losing count now since we launched our book, four or five great orders from the Fairmont hotels.
46:51
Those books are going with tourists because it's people staying at the hotel.
46:58
So.
46:58
Yeah, so absolutely.
47:00
If you can find a chain of hotels locally in Ottawa or Ottawa area, that would be awesome.
47:08
And you know what?
47:09
It's new customers all the time.
47:11
It's not the same customers visiting the same bookstore over and over again.
47:16
Yeah, for sure.
47:17
And I think also since there's a lot of interactive activities in the book, and not only is it good for the kids going around Ottawa to see the different places, but also to keep them busy while they're in
47:26
the car and traveling in the hotel room and things like that.
47:29
So kind of serve double purpose in that way.
47:32
Right on.
47:32
Let me know how you make out if that happens.
47:35
Yeah, that's good.
47:37
The role.
47:38
It sounds like you've got a very busy life with your core business, but tell us what the role of being a children's book author means in the grand scheme of things to your business now.
47:51
Yeah, I think it kind of continues with the same mission I have with my business, which is about inspiring kids, promoting good values, and bringing characters to life.
48:02
For my KISS books, I really kind of feel like it continues that same mission.
48:06
Also, just for me.
48:07
I love to write and create new stories and characters.
48:11
And to see an illustrator actually bring the story to life with her drawings, it's just been like a really amazing experience to see what they've come up with.
48:20
That's awesome.
48:21
How much time typically are you devoting to writing?
48:25
It really varies a lot, depending on my schedule.
48:27
I teach a homeschooling group and I tutor kids.
48:30
And so it's been very busy in June because it was exam season.
48:34
I tutor a lot of high school students, but now it's summer, so I don't have many students for tutoring at all.
48:39
So I'm going to have a lot more time for writing before that, it was minimal.
48:44
And then I was also focusing on promoting Pixie Dust in Ottawa, which was just released.
48:50
So I'm going to continue promoting it, of course.
48:51
But yeah, I'll definitely have time for more writing and looking forward to that this summer.
48:56
Advice for aspiring book authors.
49:00
What would you say to someone who's just starting out and they want to bring this beautiful children's book idea, but they just don't know how to get started?
49:09
What kind of advice would you give them?
49:12
Yeah, for the writing part, I'd say just get it down on paper and to let your imagination run wild, because kid loves things that are imaginative and magical and creative and to refine it a lot because even if
49:27
it's something that you think is amazing at the start, it might not appeal to kids.
49:32
Writing for kids is very different to writing for adults.
49:35
And so even if you've written novels and stuff, it is very different.
49:38
And so I learned that a lot through the different editors I've had.
49:41
I had two editors for my first book and then one editor for the second one.
49:44
And so I learned a lot about actually writing, writing for kids.
49:48
And I don't do rhyming books, but even just the way that the sentences are laid out, it's definitely a learning curve.
49:54
So, yeah, I think just continuing to always be open to learning, and I'm still learning.
49:59
I watch tons of videos and read about writing, and so I'm.
50:03
I'm getting better at it every day.
50:05
What keeps you going as a children's book often?
50:09
Yeah, I think because I love the stories.
50:11
It really is nostalgic to when I was growing up and growing up with all these different princess characters and to have my own sort of like, fantasy world or like my own, like, fairings that I'm the author of.
50:24
It's like, really.
50:25
It's really special.
50:26
And I want to continue to make more characters and to make more stories that are bringing characters to life.
50:31
Encouragement for readers.
50:33
I always say this towards the end because, you know what?
50:36
If it wasn't for children's book readers, you and I wouldn't have a.
50:41
I don't want to call it a job, but we wouldn't be writing children's books.
50:45
Why should children's book readers purchase your books?
50:49
Yeah.
50:50
So I feel like both of my books might have a slightly different answer.
50:53
So maybe I'll give two short answers.
50:55
Absolutely.
50:56
For the princess lens, I really want to inspire kids to have a pretty creative imagination and also to inspire good values in them.
51:06
But also going on a fun story as well.
51:08
So I don't want it to just be like, oh, the moral of the story is, but to have the character learn for themselves and to have a princess brought to life.
51:16
For the fairy ones, it's about highlighting different parts of Canada and getting people out and exploring, getting off the screen and getting kids curious about their city.
51:27
Or for some of my future ones, different aspects of Canada, maybe the forests or the Great Lakes and whatever else comes in the future.
51:36
Terrific.
51:37
Final Thoughts Mary Jean, Is there something that you'd like to share that maybe I haven't asked you the question of?
51:44
Or is there something you'd like to conclude with through this podcast interview?
51:48
I'll just reiterate that for any on clears, don't give up because at the start it's going to be slow.
51:55
But I think as you get better known, as you write more stories, it'll be worth it.
52:00
And if you have a dream to do this, that is worth following through,.
52:06
Well, Mary Jean, thank you so much for being a guest on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors Podcast.
52:12
Your generosity of time, your insights will significantly benefit aspiring authors and readers, and we promise to provide our audience with links to Mary Jean's website.
52:23
You gotta go there, folks, her social media and her books.
52:28
And if you've enjoyed this episode, please hit the subscribe button to listen to future episodes and feel free to share this episode with anyone inspired by or who enjoys hearing about Mary Jean and her children's book, Pixie Dusted
52:44
Ottawa.
52:45
Thank you, Mary Jean, thanks so much for having me.