Latest / Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors Podcast / Storytelling in Early Childhood Education: Using Songs and Puppets to Engage Young Learners

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Storytelling in Early Childhood Education: Using Songs and Puppets to Engage Young Learners · Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors Podcast

2:45
Hi, my name is Mary Jo Huff and I'm the author of four children's books now, another one in the works, and I've also written many resource books for the early childhood education world.
2:59
Thanks, Mary Jo, for appearing on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors podcast.
3:03
Mary Jo has mentioned she's written several children's books and today we're going to discuss her book, the Predictable Persimmon.
3:11
I look forward to our conversation.
3:14
Mary Jo, before we jump into the details of your book, can you tell us what being a children's book author means to you?
3:22
It means progress from where I came from.
3:25
I am an early childhood educator and a professional storyteller.
3:30
And I had a center with 115, 3, 4 and 5 year olds for 38 years.
3:35
And I told these stories all the time and I sang these songs and I wrote these poems and I just did all that.
3:43
And so I wrote a song called Chicken Fun, which is the first book that I had published.
3:50
But the words to the song did not fit on the paper.
3:53
It had to be changed.
3:55
The song still exists and the Predictable Persimmon is a legend.
4:00
And so every fall I get a phone call from a man at a park and he says, Mary Joan, the persimmons are on the ground.
4:07
Get out here before the deer and the raccoons eat them all.
4:10
And I would go get a pile of persimmons and bring them back to my center and the children would eat the persimmons because you have to eat them off the ground, not the tree.
4:20
If you eat them off the tree, they'll just lock your jaw.
4:23
And we ate them and then we dried the seeds.
4:26
And the seeds are tiny and they're hard to crack, but I knew how to do that and I would crack those seeds and we would predict the winter weather.
4:35
And that legend has been around for so many years.
4:39
And I have kids, they're adults to now, and they still remember us doing that.
4:44
And so when I did the book, it was important to me to have the recipes in there.
4:49
So there's two recipes in there and persimmon facts in there.
4:54
There's only one persimmon festival in the United States and it's in Mitchell, Indiana in September.
5:00
So I attended that for, I don't know, four, five, six years.
5:03
I even ate persimmon ice cream.
5:06
And one day I thought to myself, I wonder if I can just get this in a 32 page book.
5:10
If I can get this under 600 words, can I do that?
5:13
So I sat down here on this computer and typed it up.
5:17
And of course it had to be edited.
5:19
I do use professional editors and I have an editor that I use on the east coast who I've never met, who I cherish every thought that she has for me.
5:29
And so she's in my budget.
5:31
And there were changes made, but most of them were very minor changes.
5:36
Actually, an editor helped.
5:38
This editor helped me figure out that I had two layers in that book.
5:42
And so the squirrel became another layer inside of that story.
5:48
And it's a really bad bellyache.
5:50
But they warned him.
5:51
So the consequence was he didn't get as much pudding.
5:55
And it's just a fun book and a little babe.
5:58
He's only two and a half.
6:00
And his grandmother sent me the video and he said, I love that book, Bebe.
6:05
I love that book.
6:08
Animals are so happy.
6:10
So I sent that to the illustrator because I can't draw lick.
6:15
That's the second book that the illustrator illustrated for me and she's on book number three.
6:20
Okay.
6:21
That whole.
6:22
You going to the festival?
6:25
Were you just going for something to do?
6:29
You were looking for an event to go to and you just went to that event and then the book came, you said about four or five years later from that inspiration going to that.
6:40
Festival and seeing the people there that are so adamant about this legend.
6:46
I met a lady with the Chamber of commerce and she goes to the elementary school and she tells them this story every year.
6:53
Now she takes my book with her and tells the story and.
6:56
And this September, I'm going to go with her and I'm going to tell the story and then she's going to do all of her promotional stuff she does in the town.
7:06
I went there to get a feeling when you can feel what the people grasp from that little legend.
7:13
And can you tell.
7:14
I talk to people.
7:15
I just stopped people on the street.
7:18
I didn't tell them why I was there.
7:20
I just ask them questions about the legend and the persimmons and the orchard.
7:25
They have a persimmon orchards there.
7:27
It's really a big deal in that part of Indiana.
7:30
And then I found out Illinois, Ohio, there's a whole ridge of persimmon trees.
7:35
That is terrific.
7:37
So as a prolific, I'm going to call you Prolific Children's book author now that you're working on your fifth title.
7:45
And then like you said.
7:46
And we'll talk about it more when we talk about your website.
7:49
But I noticed you have some really cool resource books.
7:54
But I'm interested in knowing as a children's book author.
7:59
I'd like to talk to you about your children's book business.
8:03
Can you tell us, have you tied this into your career?
8:07
Did it evolve from you being an early childhood educator, songwriter and storyteller and now it's an extension of your life or is it the primary focus of your life?
8:20
No, it's an extension.
8:22
I still, even at my age, I still do conferences, I still keynote, I still visit early childhood centers.
8:33
I did about maybe seven or eight already this summer and a few libraries.
8:39
Books, kind of your business card.
8:42
Did they open the door to all these other opportunities that you just described?
8:47
It's those opportunities that get me in the book, in the door.
8:51
Okay, Because I already have a reputation as an early childhood person, but I wrote songs for five CDs.
8:59
So I have about 100 and something songs out there.
9:01
And they're not songs people are going to listen to on the radio, but they're songs that parents can sing with kids that are catchy quick.
9:11
And I just did that for so many years.
9:13
That early childhood world opened the door for me to do the picture books.
9:19
They're also my little niche.
9:21
I don't market these other places.
9:24
I stay in my lane.
9:26
Okay, but you do offer them on Amazon.
9:28
You have your soft cover, your hardcover, you have an ebook.
9:33
And I also noticed for one of your books you have a coloring book.
9:38
I do.
9:39
For Chicken Fen.
9:40
How are you using these formats and talk a little bit more about your coloring book and how that's working for you?
9:48
The coloring book is a real good thing for me.
9:50
Price wise.
9:51
I can give it away.
9:52
And so many times I will say to teachers, I'm going to give you a coloring book.
9:58
And then you can use any pages that you want in the coloring.
10:01
And it's exactly a black and white.
10:06
My book, chicken butt.
10:08
So that has worked out really well for me.
10:10
I'm not real big on coloring inside the lines.
10:14
Doesn't matter to me.
10:15
I'm a free art person.
10:17
But it was necessary and teachers do appreciate that.
10:20
And they have used it many times.
10:22
And I said to them, I said, get a basket and copy these pages and put them in the basket and let the kids do what they want to do.
10:29
Don't instruct them.
10:30
My center had 115, 3, 4 and 5 year olds.
10:33
I rolled them in, rolled them out and I did all, all the music and all the storytelling and set the curriculum up myself.
10:40
I've been there and done that a lot with kids.
10:43
And I know it's parents that purchase a book, but they have to have a reason to purchase that book.
10:49
And the persimmon is legend, chicken.
10:52
Fun is double sets of numbers and left to right correlation and phonological connections.
10:57
It got a real big ph backup on it.
11:00
I was tickled, but.
11:03
And it's fun.
11:04
I didn't write it for education.
11:06
I wrote it on the highway in Kansas for fun.
11:09
The predictable persimmon was something I told year after year.
11:14
And when I did it at the library this summer, I really didn't read it word for word out of the book.
11:20
I can turn the pages and tell them what's happening.
11:22
Wendy, my illustrator, did a marvelous job with the illustrations that told the story the same as I did.
11:32
That amazes me.
11:33
That's fantastic.
11:35
So I also noticed that, like you mentioned, you go to the Persimmon Festival every year.
11:41
And this year you said you're going to do something a little different because you're going to actually read your book.
11:48
And I'm also curious because I love what you said earlier.
11:52
You actually have two value added pieces in your book because you have two recipes.
11:59
One's a cookie recipe and one's a pudding recipe.
12:02
Did over the years, you actually go to the festival and eat these cookies and eat this pudding and then eventually say, oh, I gotta put these in my book.
12:13
Did you kind of scoop it from somebody else, like a baker from the festival?
12:18
Like, how did you get those?
12:20
The cookie recipe and the pudding recipe?
12:23
Pudding recipe is a story all on its own.
12:27
Our librarian in Newburgh, Indiana, at our library was a dear friend, and she was there for many years.
12:34
She retired in December that year and in January got a diagnosis of cancer.
12:42
Oh, sorry to hear that.
12:44
So when I was doing this, I said to her, do you, anybody in your family have a persimmon recipe?
12:52
Oh, my mama's got a persimmon pudding recipe.
12:55
It's to die for.
12:56
I said, you reckon I could check with your family?
12:59
Can I use that?
13:00
Because her mama has passed.
13:02
She said, well, I don't have to check with anybody.
13:04
She said, I'll give you permission.
13:06
And she typed it up, gave me permission.
13:09
And that is her mama's recipe, which was a big deal that year because that's also the year that she dealt with what she was dealing with.
13:18
And then the cookie recipe did come from another friend.
13:21
I put the word out there that I needed a very special cookie recipe.
13:26
And actually a grandma came to my house two weeks ago, and she came to get five signed books for her grandchildren.
13:34
And she brought a granddaughter with her.
13:36
And the granddaughter brought me a little Ziploc bag egg with the softest persimmon cookies you've ever eaten.
13:44
Fantastic.
13:45
I love it.
13:46
It was.
13:47
Now, the other thing I noticed and I love is that you're also a puppeteer.
13:54
I mess with puppets.
13:55
I play with them.
13:56
Terrific.
13:57
Tell us how you use your puppeteering skills to sell books.
14:02
It depends on what puppet I've got with me.
14:04
Okay.
14:06
In a few weeks, I'm going to Texas.
14:08
And the theme in Texas is, hi, Rick.
14:13
So, of course I had to go find me a pirate puppet.
14:16
Here I came.
14:18
Yes.
14:19
Special.
14:20
I love it.
14:21
So this guy and I are going to introduce a make and take at the Gaylord Hotel in Texas for a comfy cosmic.
14:29
This is my 24th year working for Frog street at Splash.
14:33
That's the name of the conference.
14:34
They don't know I'm bringing the puppet.
14:36
And I have a big ladies hat with big red feather.
14:40
And I bought a new outfit with big red buttons on it.
14:43
So you see, we'll be snazzy.
14:45
You will be snazzy.
14:47
I'm not a professional puppeteer to put on a puppet show.
14:51
I'm fascinated by those people.
14:53
But I do play with puppets and I use them.
14:58
Like, for instance, I don't have them in here.
15:00
I have the four puppets or characters in my book, and I found them.
15:07
The badger came from the UK and I had to wait a while.
15:11
So now I packaged the four puppets with the book for the children to use when retelling that story.
15:20
Retelling and the children being able to recall and retell is a really big educational piece in the United States.
15:29
It moves on into kindergarten, first grade.
15:31
But if they can do it at the early childhood level, if teachers take the time to say, okay, you're going to be the bear and you're the badger here, and here's the squirrel and here's your raccoon.
15:44
Let's retell that story.
15:46
They are encouraged to read the story, or so they just make up kind of the words themselves with the puppet.
15:56
They use their imagination.
15:58
They don't read.
15:59
They interpret the pictures from the book.
16:02
And the reading of the story.
16:04
There's a sing song in there.
16:05
It's picking time.
16:06
It's picking times.
16:07
Persimmon picking time.
16:09
So we sing that.
16:10
And when I get to that page, then I'll say to the kids, okay, it's time, Bear.
16:16
Bradley needs to call his friends.
16:18
Do it with me.
16:19
And they do it with me.
16:22
What I've learned when I do this is they're invested when are they going to get to do that again?
16:29
When are they going to get to do that again?
17:01
And then one of the pages has the word snow very big.
17:05
Yes.
17:06
And I'll say, oh, my gosh, look what happened when they opened that scene.
17:10
Bradley sent snow, too.
17:12
So they're going to get snow when I turn that page.
17:15
And I said, look, Sinow, snow.
17:17
Can y' all say that with me?
17:18
Snow.
17:19
And they do.
17:20
Right now, they've got a piece of that story.
17:22
Very engaging.
17:24
Very engaging.
17:25
So it's nice that you share that, because I talk to a lot of children's book authors who do book readings at schools, but they certainly aren't as engaging with a puppet as you are.
17:39
So that.
17:40
That's just so nice to hear.
17:43
And you must get a lot of interaction.
17:46
I do.
17:47
And when I go to school as an author, which that's happening a lot, people will call and say, we need an author visit.
17:54
And I just wrote a grant with the Indiana Arts Commission for me to go to 12 schools.
18:00
But when I do that, I don't just sit down in a chair and pick up a book and say, okay, boys and girls, we're going to read this book today.
18:09
Doesn't work that way.
18:10
I play a song, and my song crosses midline, and it's called Children's Mind.
18:16
And it's fast.
18:17
It's fast.
18:18
I've had musicians say, how do you get away with that?
18:22
I don't know how I get away with it, but it works.
18:25
So if it works, I use it again.
18:27
And so I do that.
18:29
And when you cross that midline, both sides of their brain are activated and they're ready for something else.
18:34
Then I open a book, and then, hey, read the story.
18:40
And then we do story talk after that.
18:43
Okay.
18:43
Sometimes I feel like when you say.
18:46
Story talk, so explain that a bit more.
18:49
What is story talk?
18:51
Many times, teachers and people drop the ball with this because once you planted that story in their little minds.
18:59
Don't close that book because it said the end, because the end should be the start of something else.
19:05
And that start would be, oh, my gosh, kids, did you see what happened to that squirrel there?
19:12
What do you think he's doing?
19:13
I go back and regenerate ourselves through that story, just with me asking questions.
19:19
But they're going to think about that, and they're going to verbally tell me what's in their minds.
19:25
And sometimes I'll take another 18 minutes, 20 minutes, just talking with 15 kids about that story.
19:34
Wow.
19:34
And what if he hadn't found that tree, would they have had any pudding?
19:40
And you know what the kids will say?
19:42
Yeah, he goes to the grocery store.
19:43
I'll say, those persimmons aren't in the grocery store.
19:47
So you have to be ready to address whatever they come up with.
19:53
But when you've done story talk as long as I have, you have any trouble, you just do it.
19:58
I could probably talk the telephone booklet if I needed to because I've done it.
20:02
So long.
20:03
Tell us a little bit about your publishing approach.
20:07
Because I noticed a couple of things.
20:09
One, I noticed on some of your books, it says Monday morning books as the publisher.
20:15
And then I didn't notice a publisher's name on most of your book.
20:20
So tell us you're publishing approach.
20:24
So the very first picture book that I wrote was an accident.
20:30
A PhD friend of mine lives in Arkansas.
20:33
She had a dog named Ebenezer.
20:36
We talked a lot because we work a lot together.
20:40
But every time we were on the phone, all she would do was, Ebenezer, get out of that trash.
20:46
It was constant.
20:47
So one day I have these post it note pads over here.
20:51
I started writing down Ebenezer in the trash, Ebenezer in her bed, Ebenezer digging the yard.
20:58
I started writing all these down.
20:59
And one day I thought, I think I've got a book here.
21:02
So I got in this computer and I got the format, set it up, and sure enough, I had enough stuff in there about Ebenezer.
21:11
Another friend in Arkansas said, oh, I got a publisher that I'll love, that I did deal with the publisher.
21:19
I did go through the process and I'll never do it again.
21:23
Okay, was that a hybrid publisher?
21:26
No.
21:28
What kind of publisher was it?
21:29
They're not a big publisher.
21:30
They're very small publisher.
21:32
They're a traditional publisher.
21:33
They publish a lot of western books and stuff like that.
21:38
And they were putting a new imprint together inside their publishing company, which was children's picture books.
21:45
Okay.
21:45
So I was a newbie on the market.
21:47
They had, I think, four other books out.
21:49
I thought this was a good idea.
21:51
I'm as new as they are.
21:53
But it was not a good situation.
21:56
So long comes Chicken Fun, the song I've done.
22:00
And after I put this book together, I thought, I think I can do that again.
22:03
So I have two big screens in front of me.
22:05
I pulled the screen up, got my format out, and I plugged in Chicken Fan.
22:09
I thought, oh.
22:11
And then I thought, take a deep breath, Mary Jo.
22:15
And the next job you get, if you make enough money to make this happen.
22:19
Do it.
22:20
So the next job I got took two jobs.
22:24
I put all that money in a separate place and that money and I did Chicken foot together.
22:31
Wendy.
22:32
I stalked the illustrator.
22:35
I found a book she wrote called Three Pigs Rocket Project.
22:38
Read that book and said, I got to find this girl.
22:40
This is exactly the artwork I need.
22:43
I got to find her.
22:43
I did.
22:44
I tracked her down.
22:45
She lived in Ohio, but she would never answer my emails one day.
22:49
This is true.
22:50
I called her, Wendy, I live in Indiana, you live in Ohio, you're in Amherst, Ohio.
22:55
And I can get my car and I'm going to drive over because you got to see my manuscript.
22:59
I got an email, right?
23:02
She said, send me the manuscript.
23:04
Okay, I did immediate.
23:07
I'll do that book.
23:08
Oh my gosh, I love your manuscript.
23:11
So that's how I got that illustrator.
23:13
And she also did Predictable for seven.
23:16
And she's doing my Sugar Cookie Girl.
23:19
Okay.
23:20
I did one in between there.
23:22
She was too busy to do my.
23:25
This one's going on a gator hunt.
23:27
It's like going on a bear hunt.
23:29
So you've used multiple illustrators or three.
23:33
Yeah, three.
23:33
I thought so.
23:34
Yeah.
23:34
And so.
23:35
But now with Wendy, she's your go to illustrator.
23:39
Yep.
23:40
And she's going to do the 127.
23:42
That's okay.
23:43
Canada goose.
23:44
Okay.
23:44
Terrific, terrific.
23:46
I opened my own publishing company called Storytelling Time Press.
23:50
Okay.
23:51
So you're now a self published author.
23:55
You never do it any other way.
23:58
At my level, Big five is not going to come after me.
24:02
And.
24:03
And I don't have enough life left to deal with all that agent stuff and all that mess.
24:06
I got into that I joined scbwi.
24:09
I got in.
24:10
I went to Los Angeles twice.
24:14
I did all that.
24:15
I've been to conference after conference and I know that this lane is where God wanted me.
24:20
And you know what's interesting that you should say that, Mary Jo, because that's the lane that we are in.
24:26
I was lucky because I ended up in this lane because during COVID like a lot of people I wrote, I didn't write children's books.
24:35
I actually wrote two business books.
24:37
And.
24:38
But then I learned how to be a self published author from that.
24:43
When my oldest granddaughter was old enough to want to write children's books with me, she said, papa, what do we do?
24:51
How do we bring our book to life?
24:53
And I said, you know what?
24:54
I've already been a self published author.
24:57
The only difference is, of course the business books are all words.
25:00
But I said, all we have to do is find ourselves a good illustrator and a good book formatter.
25:06
And away we go to your point.
25:09
And that's what I encourage a lot of people to do.
25:12
If you have the where for all, definitely self publishing is a great way to go.
25:18
And you have to have a budget and you have to have some business sense.
25:22
This is something that I follow some people and I think I've owned three businesses at one time.
25:29
I had one on here and I had a big inventory of props and things for years when I would do conferences, if it said the word story, Mary Jo was going to sell it to somebody because they needed
25:46
it.
25:46
It wasn't about the money, but I always had to make sure I didn't get in the hole.
25:51
So I don't borrow and I don't spend what I don't have.
25:55
That's terrific advice.
25:57
Tell us about just because of our audience.
26:00
When it came to self publishing, your first book, what was your biggest challenge or frustration?
26:08
It was after the book was in my hand.
26:10
Now how am I going to get this to people and the statistics out there?
26:15
Just the other day a man said, most books don't ever sell more than 440 books.
26:21
I've heard between 100 and 500 copies.
26:24
So he's right on the button.
26:27
I pulled up my spreadsheet.
26:29
Two of my books have surpassed that terrific one.
26:33
I've not marketed the Gator Hunt.
26:35
I just haven't gotten around to marketing it.
26:37
And I know there's a lot of lanes out there.
26:41
Tell you this, I just took an ad out in a chicken book, spent the time, made the ad, did everything and it was in my budget.
26:49
I did it all and I was so tickled.
26:52
And so I took care of all that mess.
26:54
And then I got an email and the nice young lady on the other end said, can I call you?
26:59
I said, sure.
27:00
She calls me and she said, would you like to know something about our distribution?
27:05
I said, oh yeah.
27:06
This has nothing to do with early childhood.
27:09
It's how to raise chickens.
27:12
Wait a minute.
27:13
We have 46,000 distribution around the world.
27:17
I said, you have what?
27:19
I thought, oh, my goodness, I only keep a hundred books on hand.
27:23
What if they order from me?
27:25
What do I do?
27:25
And then I pulled the ad back up and thank God I put it on Amazon.
27:29
Maybe they'll flip over.
27:30
But I didn't know that fact before I did it.
27:34
Oh, wow, I've done it.
27:36
Would I have done it anyway?
27:38
I probably would have slept on it and done it.
27:40
I don't get scared about much.
27:43
This happened last week.
27:44
You know, it's interesting, Mary Jo, because that's.
27:47
I've talked to different authors who have really gone outside what would be their traditional lane.
27:56
A lot of people just think about bookstores and stuff like that.
27:59
But you know what?
28:00
I've had a couple of our children's book authors who have written books around, like, nature and around gardens and stuff like that.
28:09
And they've taken their books to garden stores, which there's a lot of garden stores, and a lot of them have bought their books to sell inside their stores.
28:19
Because a lot of these garden stores have.
28:21
Guess what?
28:22
They have a gift store.
28:24
What a unique thing to do.
28:25
So I love what you're talking about, is that try and broaden your approach to where you're going to sell your books.
28:34
I need to go to Florida and market this because I found the puppet to go with it.
28:39
I just ordered 100 puppets and the puppet has the red mouth exactly like this.
28:43
Oh, terrific.
28:45
And it's only this big.
28:47
So excited.
28:48
Yeah.
28:49
Packaged it.
28:50
This will debut in July.
28:53
I have four gigs in July that I'll take these to see if it's something that people want.
28:59
This is on your going to be on your website, correct?
29:02
We haven't decided yet.
29:03
I have to pay somebody to do my website.
29:05
I'm not real good at that.
29:06
Okay.
29:07
So I have to approach Jim gently and say, jim, I had him take off a bunch of stuff, but now I went and put something back on.
29:16
We might probably.
29:18
Let's talk a little bit about your website.
29:20
I always like to talk about, was it the chicken or the egg that came first?
29:25
So was it your books that came first and then you developed your website, or was it your website and then your books were added to your website?
29:34
That website and then my books were added.
29:37
Okay.
29:37
Because before these books were resource books, and one is called Puppet Play, and it's all about how to make easy puppets out of nothing and what to do with them and stories to do with them.
29:51
And then a storytelling book that was Monday Morning Press many years ago.
29:59
And we were at a place in Florida and it was downtime, it was a vending place, and some guy from New York was playing a guitar.
30:10
And so I'm always down there and I can make up words.
30:14
So here he and I were making up these songs, and this publishing company contacted me and wanted to know if I could do that stuff I was doing there and put it in the book.
30:24
I said, sure.
30:26
I said, sure.
30:27
In November and in January, I Called them in California and I said, I don't think this was a very good idea.
30:32
I didn't think this through.
30:33
That's not something I need to be doing.
30:35
They laughed.
30:37
They said I was a talker, not a writer.
30:39
So they gave me a format.
30:42
Oh, terrific.
30:44
Yeah.
30:44
And it was their top seller for about six years.
30:47
And when the owner passed away and the daughter decided that she couldn't move forward with that, I got the rights back.
30:57
And then I changed the COVID and redid.
31:00
I updated it because some of the stuff in there was older.
31:03
And I'm a big deal with peepers.
31:06
I love peepers.
31:07
They're little eyeballs that I use.
31:12
And so I.
31:13
I became synonymous with peepers.
31:15
And I got to know the man in North Carolina that invented them.
31:19
I dressed him up and that's awesome.
31:23
Tell us the name of your website.
31:59
I love your name.
32:00
Oh, it's www.storytellin.com.
32:04
That's storytelling without the G.
32:07
Right on.
32:08
That is important.
32:08
It's a Southern version.
32:11
There you go.
32:12
You said you've got somebody looking after doing the maintenance website.
32:17
So how are you driving traffic to your website?
32:21
It's everywhere.
32:23
It's on every piece of material.
32:25
It's.
32:26
It's everywhere.
32:27
Okay.
32:28
Thank you, Mary Jo, for saying that, because it's important.
32:30
I've talked to some children's book authors, and they don't put their website on their children's book.
32:36
And I say, whoa, that's a great place to get people there.
32:41
Right on.
32:42
So you make sure your website's in your books.
32:45
You make sure your websites, on your promotional activity, everywhere that you're promoting it all the time.
32:51
Where are people going to look you up if they don't?
32:53
I know there's Instagram, I know Facebook.
32:55
I know all that mess.
32:56
But all of that is not you.
32:59
My website's big because it's been around a long time.
33:02
And it was suggested that I have a separate author's website.
33:08
We went back and forth with that for a long time.
33:11
I do not want to maintain that.
33:13
And I have this established website and Jim suggested, let's do that.
33:19
And we put an author tab in there.
33:22
We still have a lot of work to do on that, but we've decided not to do a just a standalone authors.
33:30
I could go to WIX and all those places capable of doing all that.
33:33
But this right here, this is Canva.
33:37
And I print with Canva.
33:38
I don't even bother to go to another printer because it's like pennies.
33:42
It's like Pennies and all my stickers.
33:46
Everything has my website.
33:48
This is our business card.
33:49
And because I noticed you have on your website the QR code.
33:53
So the beautiful thing about our business card like yours is when you scan that QR code, it takes you to our latest episode of our podcast show.
34:05
Yeah.
34:06
So very important.
34:07
The other thing I did is we went through Canva, designed this bookmark.
34:13
There's a QR code on the bookmark, and people can, when they scan it, they not only get the audiobook read by my granddaughter, but they also get the podcast interview with my granddaughter about the story behind the story
34:31
on how we wrote our first book.
34:33
Cool.
34:34
I have a QR code on my.
34:36
I give bookmarks out.
34:37
I think I did 1100 kids over in Illinois this year, and I took 1200 bookmarks.
34:43
If they hit file 13, the pennies that got there, it was worth it.
34:49
If one or two people go to that website, there's a QR code on everything.
34:53
Now, that QR code thing, what they gonna come up with next?
34:56
I don't know.
34:57
I know.
34:57
That's terrific.
35:00
You had mentioned this earlier about belonging to different organizations over the years.
35:06
So I noticed on your website you're a member of six different groups.
35:10
So tell us what the payoff is in belonging to a couple of those groups.
35:17
What does it mean to you?
35:19
I belong to the NA yc, and that's the National Early Childhood Conference.
35:23
And I have spoken there many times.
35:26
Okay.
35:27
It's a big time.
35:29
Then I heard about SCB from an author in Louisiana.
35:36
And so I got on a plane.
35:38
I had air miles and I had hotel points, and I flew to Los Angeles, okay?
35:43
And I cried.
35:44
I cried every night in my hotel room by myself.
35:47
I cried because I didn't even know the language.
35:50
I didn't know what those people were talking about.
35:52
The keynotes were fabulous.
35:55
So I came back to Indiana and got on here, and I learned the next year, that author in Louisiana called and said, are you presenting at the storytelling conference?
36:06
I said, I am.
36:07
Are you?
36:07
She said, yeah.
36:08
She said, let's room together.
36:09
I said, okay.
36:11
She said, mary Jo, it's the same time.
36:14
We could lap over.
36:15
You want to go to that, too?
36:17
I said, sure.
36:18
Went to SCBWI national in Los Angeles for the second time.
36:22
And guess what?
36:23
This time I knew the language.
36:26
This time I picked the right workshops.
36:28
Okay.
36:29
And the Midwest.
36:31
And so what was the difference in terms of what was the value?
36:35
So you went the first time and you just thought, oh, my God, what have I gotten into and then the second time you went, like you said, you picked the right seminars to go to.
36:46
But tell us, what was that experience?
36:50
After the first time, I came back home and I hit this computer and I got as much information as I could.
36:56
I just gleaned out whatever I could.
36:59
And so the second time that I got to go, Diane was very published.
37:04
She was published like six times.
37:05
And she was at a different level there, going to classes.
37:10
But I knew what I needed.
37:12
I knew where to go and what I needed.
37:15
And then I went to the Midwest Conference, which is held in the Midwest.
37:20
It was in Chicago.
37:22
It was marvelous.
37:24
Katie Mesner had on a pair of blue jeans and did a little workshop down the hall.
37:28
And today she's got, what, 20 something books sitting out there.
37:31
They're marvelous books.
37:32
Wow.
37:33
I own probably three fourths of them.
37:35
Okay.
37:36
She was just a teacher in the classroom and I learned so much.
37:40
If you learn, if you go to a conference and you come home with say four or five gold nuggets in your pocket, you hold on to and do something with them that's worth your going.
37:51
Okay.
37:51
They don't have the conferences now like they did before COVID Before COVID they were like Tennessee.
37:59
I love to go to the Tennessee CBWI conference.
38:03
Those little Southern gals down there have a whole different approach to things and they keep going all the time.
38:08
They fix you a mayonnaise and tomato sandwich.
38:11
There's a whole different atmosphere there.
38:14
But those are pre Covid.
38:17
So now, I think, belonging to an organization.
38:21
You glean out of that organization, you give to it, but then you find things, you follow them.
38:27
I'm still a member of scbwi.
38:30
It has changed a lot.
38:32
And I belong to the Indiana.
38:34
We have a wonderful ras in Indiana.
38:37
Want to know something?
38:39
Can't find it on the computer.
38:40
One of those girls will know.
38:43
You need that feeling of there's somebody else out there that knows what you're talking about.
38:48
And what about the puppeteering organization?
38:51
I think their ear belonged to a puppeteering organization too.
38:55
I've always paid my dues to Puppeteers of America because those people are so fascinating.
39:00
Okay.
39:01
And I've been to the National Puppeteer's Place in Atlanta a few times.
39:05
It's if you're ever in Atlanta, that and Eric Carle's museum is right close to it.
39:10
They're worth going to.
39:12
When I say puppets, many of my songs and even a chicken fun book.
39:17
I have those chickens all printed and they're on a stick and the kids hold the sticks up when we do the double sets of numbers.
39:24
Yes.
39:24
And.
39:24
And in the persimmon book, I had made my own giant seed about that big, and I put the shadow in his eyes.
39:33
So redoing with the kids, I'll say, I'm going to open this up.
39:37
Well, let's guess.
39:38
What do we got?
39:38
A knife, a fork or a spoon?
39:41
And we open it up and.
39:43
And that technically is a puppet because I have a thing on the back that I flip with it.
39:48
And anything on a stick is a puppet.
39:50
It's not what the puppeteers of America do.
39:53
I cannot do a marionette.
39:55
I tried to walk one one time and it got its legs upside down in the stream of space.
40:01
I don't do that.
40:02
Okay.
40:03
I admire them and their ability to.
40:06
Their ability to connect with the kids.
40:08
I will tell you, a puppet on your hand, that pirate right there, pirate's gonna open up a whole session on Thursday morning at 8 o' clock at Gaylord Hotel, in case of my adult hands, will write onto that
40:22
puppet and they'll know it's on my hand.
40:25
But actually watch that puppet.
40:27
And it's not that you're a ventriloquist, it's just that you're.
40:31
Yeah, that's so much fun.
40:33
When you started to think about becoming a children's book author after being this entertainer and songwriter for such a long time, was there a specific moment or person that kind of opened your eyes and said, you know what?
40:50
I can do this.
40:51
I can be a children's book author.
40:54
There is a lady in Texas, her name is Dr.
40:57
Pam Shiller.
40:59
We became very good friends.
41:02
And I was very doubtful.
41:05
And she said, mary Jo, I've been around you long enough to know that if you want to write a children's book, you're going to write.
41:12
I said, can I send you a couple of ideas?
41:14
I've got.
41:15
Send them.
41:16
So inside of the old Frog street curriculum, there's a book that she let me write, a very small, short little book.
41:26
It started with a sock.
41:27
It's about a puppet, okay.
41:29
And that little book set me free.
41:32
It was like.
41:33
And then right after that, up came this dog book with that publisher.
41:38
And then actually that made me mad.
41:40
That angered me about people taking advantage of people.
41:46
And so I wanted to prove that I could do that without being taken advantage of.
41:53
So I did.
41:53
That's when Chicken Fund came.
41:55
Now, Chicken Fund.
41:55
I've sold over a thousand Chicken Fund books.
41:58
Just me.
41:59
That's terrific.
42:00
I don't keep those algorithm things.
42:02
I don't know how to algorithm.
42:03
And so I don't even know what Amazon's done.
42:06
And it's okay.
42:07
And I give books away, too.
42:09
There's a lot of.
42:10
You can see over here.
42:11
I have two big bookcases out there and I paid a college student one time to write them down.
42:16
Because if your house caught on fire, you would get a penny for your books.
42:20
If it wasn't documented.
42:22
That happened to a friend of mine.
42:23
So anyway, I had over 2000 books.
42:25
Wow.
42:26
My children are very concerned about fine buying.
42:33
I'm giving 25 at a time away.
42:35
Let's talk about your book, the Predictable Persimmon.
42:39
I want to talk to first of all about the character development of Bradley.
42:44
So talk to us about how you brought Bradley to life.
42:48
What the heck does a bear have to do with persimmons?
42:52
Because mama fixes persimmon pudding and they celebrate the legend.
43:00
That editor I told you about on the east coast, she helped me figure out Bradley's the only name in the book.
43:08
Yeah.
43:08
And it's interesting because that's one of my questions, is why you have all these great secondary characters, but they don't have a name.
43:16
So let's jump into that also.
43:18
So talk to us a little bit more about Bradley's development and then why your secondary characters don't have names.
43:26
They had names beginning, but the names became clumsy.
43:31
When we would read the book, the names were clumsy, and I changed the name and called them all kinds of things.
43:40
And it still, I type it and retype it, and it didn't work.
43:45
But I didn't want Bradley to just be Little Bear or baby bear or whoever bear, because he talked to his dad, Papa Bear, about the legend.
43:55
So the editor and I on the east coast, she said, so why don't we just leave Bradley and don't give them a name?
44:03
I said, I'm going to try.
44:04
I'm going to try that.
44:05
So I did.
44:06
And actually, I have to tell you, I recorded myself with this who telling my story on this other screen.
44:11
And it worked.
44:13
I don't know why it worked, but it worked.
44:15
And so I was able to read that story without them having a name like Susie Squirrel or whatever.
44:23
And it was easier and it was better, and Bradley became the total main character in that story.
44:30
And so he stood out.
44:32
Like I said to you earlier, we get a lot of aspiring children's book authors listening to our show, and I'm always trying to give them some golden nuggets they can hang onto.
44:44
And you know what you just taught people A really unique technique.
44:48
So I want to thank you for that.
44:50
Thank you for sharing that.
44:51
Because I think aspiring children's book authors can learn from that technique.
44:57
Sometimes you just got to dance on your own.
44:59
I've never been afraid to step out and dance on my own.
45:02
And so sometimes there are.
45:05
People think there are rules.
45:07
And maybe they were a rule in 1998 or 2010, but they might not be a rule that works today, as we know with AI and et cetera,.
45:18
World is changing fast, rapidly.
45:22
Yes.
45:23
Do all your books carry a central theme?
45:27
No, not really.
45:29
Because Chicken Fun is really a math book.
45:31
It's double sets in numbers.
45:33
And it has.
45:34
Here's what my books do.
45:35
Have something for the kids to do.
45:38
And so I work on that.
45:40
I work on that.
45:41
Okay.
45:42
Not every one of them, but in Chicken Fun, they go.
45:47
And persimmon pudding.
45:49
It's.
45:49
It's picking time.
45:50
It's picking time.
45:51
It's persimmon picking time.
45:53
So they do that.
45:54
And then it's long green gator with big yellow eyes and a swishing tail.
46:00
That anticipation of, do I get to do that again?
46:03
It's there.
46:04
Fantastic.
46:05
And actually, I do have it.
46:06
The other book.
46:07
And no Ebenezer.
46:09
I point to the kids and they say, no, Ebenezer.
46:12
And I say, he got in the truck and they have a pup on the rug.
46:17
And so they do have something to do in every one of them.
46:20
And the new one coming out will be dancing and twirl.
46:25
Can't catch me.
46:26
I'm the sugar cookie girl.
46:28
She's fair.
46:29
I love it.
46:30
I love it.
46:31
You just don't know she.
46:32
Listen, she's going to be the grand champion at the fair because she was one smart.
46:39
I'm excited for that one.
46:41
It sounds like you have so much fun writing, so share some insights into your writing process for your children's books.
46:50
Pencil and paper.
46:52
I'm a post it note queen.
46:54
Okay.
46:54
I have it.
46:55
Look here.
46:56
Here's a stack.
46:57
See them color coded.
46:58
But Mary Jo, I'm the same way.
47:00
If you saw my office, I got stacks and stacks.
47:04
And I'm thinking, oh, my goodness.
47:05
Sometimes you just gotta go through and edit them and get rid of some.
47:11
This is a gleaned stack.
47:12
I cleaned this one up.
47:15
I do write, I do write things down.
47:18
And I have a giant 4 by 8 bullet board up here.
47:21
You can't see it.
47:22
It's right there.
47:23
So when I get real hot on something, I start putting them up there in order.
47:28
And then I get in the computer.
47:30
Excellent.
47:30
And I type it.
47:31
Okay.
47:32
And I type it.
47:32
And then you can go on, you can get in here and find how to format a 32 page book, a 40 page book.
47:39
There's all in there, the little squares and all that.
47:43
It's all in there.
47:44
Then I go in and do that and then I'll say, that ain't gonna work.
47:50
That can't end like that, or that's that gator hanging out there nowhere because you can then see it or play with it.
48:00
And are you drawing on just your own personal experience?
48:03
Are, are you conducting any additional research when you do your writing?
48:08
Well, I do a lot of research.
48:10
Okay.
48:10
I dig up as much stuff on this computer as I can dig up.
48:14
Okay.
48:15
I, I've already, I go to fairs, so I had a feel for the chickens, the goats and the cow and the tractor and the blue.
48:25
I had a.
48:26
I felt all.
48:27
I've already done all that.
48:28
Been there for that one.
48:29
Okay.
48:30
And, and then the book for 27.
48:33
Yes, I've researched that a lot and it's about a Canada goose flying south.
48:39
And so I've had to get in and know those things before I even put two words in there.
48:45
Okay.
48:46
I think, I think you have to research it because if you're not right today on this computer, AI will nail you.
48:53
If you're not right, you've got to do that research.
48:56
And you need to know, you need to know that book inside and out.
49:01
My little dog book.
49:03
I'm not.
49:03
I don't have a dog.
49:04
But when I was a child, I had a dachshund.
49:07
That little Ebenezer and I are good friends, the guys are.
49:11
We talked a bit about your book business plan.
49:15
But I'm more curious now about success.
49:18
So the nice thing about it is even you've done a four.
49:22
Moving on to five children's books.
49:25
Talk to us about, if you can think back to your very first book and what you envisioned success would look like for you.
49:32
And now that you've got four books in the world, what does success really look like?
49:38
So tell us the.
49:38
Before, what did you think success was?
49:41
And tell us the reality of success now.
49:45
I thought my book was going to get on Amazon and everybody's going to be so excited, everybody, that the world's going to order that book and we were just going to sell a lot of them.
49:53
But it doesn't happen that way.
49:55
And I can market in my niche that where I live, I can market there.
50:03
So that made me stop and think, what do I need to do to make this book important to the people I know, to the world, piece of the world that I know.
50:15
And so I set out on a mission to get that done.
50:21
And I had no problem with Chicken Fun because that song paid my bills for nine years.
50:26
I could get on stage with 2,000 people and do Chicken Fun so that would move faster.
50:33
And then the selling of that was faster because I'd already been to these places.
50:38
They already knew the song.
50:40
And here came the boom.
50:42
And, there's two other artists.
50:43
I gave permission to put it on YouTube.
50:45
And the one man makes $15 million a year not on Chicken Fun, but on his stuff.
50:51
And then the persimmon book, I have hustled it across Indiana.
50:58
I drive to Mitchell and I take books up there.
51:00
I went to Bedford and I went to Bloomington, to the little places that I know, little gift stores.
51:05
I don't care if it's a bookstore or not.
51:08
And my biggest battle is with Ingram and getting people to.
51:14
They don't communicate back fast.
51:16
You could send something on Monday.
51:18
You might not hear from them until Thursday or Friday.
51:21
That doesn't work because we need to have an answer to a question.
51:26
And so I'm battling.
51:28
I sold.
51:30
I had a vending booth at early childhood conferences with 19 different companies in it because I got so excited about the word story.
51:38
If it said story.
51:39
Mary Jo's got Frank Shaver.
51:41
I'm sorry.
51:42
And so my battle right now today is with pricing of a hardback book with Ingram, who host sales across the United States to bookstores and libraries and picked up Baker and Taylor's leftovers and how to price that book.
52:08
You have to put a 2499 price on a hardback picture book to allow somebody a 45% discount.
52:16
And retailers are not going to order under 45%.
52:19
That's even pushing it.
52:22
Yes, absolutely.
52:23
So that piece of this equation is very difficult for me.
52:27
And believe me, I battle.
52:29
I'm not afraid of them.
52:30
And I was on there last night again, and as I said in my email, it's too bad you're not human.
52:38
I can tell you're AI and you really don't understand my problem because it wasn't a human.
52:44
I could talk to you like you and say, I need an explanation.
52:49
You're not going to believe this.
52:50
One time I got in my car and I drove to La Verne, Tennessee, where the Ingram plant is.
52:56
It was born down rain.
52:57
And I'm calling these people and tell them I'm in their parking lot.
53:00
They didn't let me Come in.
53:02
So I remind them of that story.
53:04
It's interesting because hardcover books, like you said, when you look at some of the pricing, and unfortunately, if you go.
53:11
If you use Amazon doesn't print children's hardcover books because the minimum you have to have for a hardcover book is 75 pages.
53:20
But what's interesting is that I talked to this gal I was telling you about, Charlotte Glaze, episode 23 from Oklahoma, and she actually went to a website called madeinchina.com and she actually ordered her hardcover books through them.
53:41
And what a difference.
53:42
She told me that she just couldn't believe.
53:45
The quality was incredible, the pricing was beyond her expectations, and when she did in person events, she could take a much higher margin, which allowed her to fund her next book, unfortunately through Ingram and Amazon.
54:02
With hardcover books, generally, you just don't have that luxury.
54:06
You're not making the margin you need to help support your book.
54:10
You don't make 79 cents.
54:12
Yeah, it's.
54:13
Yeah, it's brutal.
54:14
People think they're going to make money.
54:16
I see that.
54:17
It's not about the money, the hardback, but the reason you need Ingram.
54:21
Yes, I could go publish in China.
54:23
I've done that research.
54:24
I also found a publisher, a printer in the United States that wouldn't make me worry about the ship outside of San Francisco sitting there in the future, because that happened to a friend of mine.
54:35
I found somebody in the United states, and actually two of us are going to get a picture book, 500 to 1,000 printed.
54:44
And it's reasonable enough.
54:45
We're going to stay in the United States.
54:47
But here's the problem, both sides.
54:51
Then with Ingram, it gets marketed.
54:54
With Ingram, it goes out to all these places.
54:58
Who's going to have the time or take the time to market to these places?
55:04
And are they going to trust you?
55:06
You know what I'm saying?
55:07
Yes.
55:08
So if Storytelling Time sent out a notice that they.
55:12
The predictable persimmon was available, yada, yada, yada, yada.
55:16
The one thing I might recommend, episode 67, Brittany Pettish.
55:20
And she's written five or six children's books.
55:24
But what she did is she was at a book conference and she was sitting next to a guy and he actually wrote different types of genre.
55:35
He was doing adventure books and she was writing children's books.
55:39
And he said to her, he said, oh, why don't you have any hardcovers?
55:43
And she said, because I just can't find where I can get a viable price that makes it reasonable for people to buy my hardcover.
55:52
Book.
55:52
And he says, why don't you print it through Amazon?
55:55
And she said, no, I can't.
55:57
She said, I have to have a minimum of 75 pages.
56:00
He said, ah.
56:01
He said, you know what you should do?
56:03
He said, you've got four or five books.
56:06
Take three of them and make a compilation and make that your hardcover book.
56:13
And so that's what she did.
56:14
So she only offers softcover and ebooks generally.
56:18
And then she has one hardcover book that she prints through Amazon and the price is way more reasonable, and she's able to market her hardcover book.
56:30
So I just throw that out at you, because with your three books, you might be able to think about, let me do a compilation, and then I can print it through kdp and the price will be very reasonable.
56:42
And I'll have a nice, beautiful hardcover.
56:45
Book that's also sitting over here in a spreadsheet.
56:49
Oh, okay.
56:51
And that's directly.
56:53
That is awesome.
56:54
I want to talk a little bit more about being a children's book author in your life now, in the grand scheme of things, what is it added to your life?
57:07
No shelf room in the garage, no shelter, lots of time on the computer, lots of searching.
57:15
I'm a searcher and a lot of just trying to figure it out.
57:20
I know the market.
57:21
I'm not one to go sit at these little festivals.
57:24
And I have a writing partner who I love dearly, and she has three new books out, and so she wanted to try the art fairs.
57:32
And I said, okay, I'll go with you.
57:34
And I went, knowing what we were going to face, but she had to face it herself.
57:41
And you might sit there and sell two books all day and you might talk to 50 people.
57:46
My niche is not there.
57:47
My niche is the early childhood field.
57:49
And K1, Persephone could go up to K1 or 2.
57:53
I've actually taken second grade and sat a good time with.
57:57
And so you have to know what's there.
58:01
And today schools don't have a lot of money to pay.
58:05
They don't have $1,000 to pay you to come in and talk about who you are.
58:08
Yes.
58:09
And I told you, I just got a grant.
58:11
And my grant will allow me to go to 12 schools.
58:16
I will get paid not what I charge.
58:18
It'll be minimal, but it'll cover my day.
58:22
And a book will be included in that.
58:24
And so this is my force growing up.
58:27
So I know how to do all that.
58:28
And I do it because then I get to expose the kid to what I love into the words I Love and the stories.
58:37
I love.
58:38
That's true.
58:39
And I'm.
58:39
I'm older than most of you guys out here.
58:41
I've been around a long time.
58:44
I've retired three times.
58:46
I'm not going to retire again.
58:47
I tell God every day.
58:49
We know it's not today because I got a lot on my plate today.
58:52
I got a podcast and four other things and two meetings today.
58:55
That.
58:55
That's terrific.
58:58
Let's pick up on that.
58:59
Advice for aspiring authors.
59:02
What kind of advice would you give someone just starting out?
59:06
Talk to other authors who are willing to sit down and talk with you.
59:09
Go to lunch, go to coffee early in the morning, six o' clock in the morning when it's quiet and your brain is fresh.
59:16
Get on this computer thing and search and then join other communities and listen.
59:25
Be careful.
59:26
There's communities out there that will drag you down.
59:29
Get out.
59:30
Find that community that you can relate to and then know the rules.
59:38
I've been in three groups, writing critique groups.
59:45
I had to get out.
59:46
And because I've taken hundreds, not a few hundreds of classes.
59:52
I'm over 103.
59:53
I did a spreadsheet.
59:55
I have a spreadsheet.
59:57
And they're not all writing.
59:59
Your dottotech is a techie guy.
1:00:04
Way out of my brain.
1:00:05
But I've really learned a lot every day.
1:00:08
At my age, I learn something every day.
1:00:13
So you've got to know the system.
1:00:15
You've got to know what's required.
1:00:17
You've got to know about everything in a book.
1:00:21
And then I go to my library, and the librarian was in my preschool, and I say to her, I need about 20 books to go home with today.
1:00:31
What do you got that's new?
1:00:33
And she'll go over and pull me.
1:00:35
20 books.
1:00:36
Wow.
1:00:37
I come home and I read those books.
1:00:40
I don't read the books for the words.
1:00:43
I look at that first page, I look at that second page, I see where the first words went in that book.
1:00:49
It's a page four.
1:00:50
Is it page five?
1:00:51
How did they set that up?
1:00:52
I go to the back of the book.
1:00:54
I see what's in the back of the book.
1:00:56
Because I put in the back of my books what I want to put in the back of my book.
1:01:01
I always have teacher resources.
1:01:03
I like stuff because I appreciate it.
1:01:07
Is that what keeps you going as a children's book author?
1:01:11
Yeah.
1:01:13
Every day.
1:01:13
Every day.
1:01:14
As soon as Sugar Cookie girl hits my.
1:01:18
It's already behind.
1:01:19
It's not going to make the fair season this year.
1:01:21
Launch got scrapped.
1:01:23
People are Listening.
1:01:24
The launch got scrapped.
1:01:26
My artist sold her house and she's moving.
1:01:29
It's all another little glitch.
1:01:32
And you just have to ride that horse, whichever direction it's going.
1:01:36
Okay, so I will reroute myself.
1:01:40
But nothing.
1:01:41
What am I doing with it?
1:01:42
It's fast right now.
1:01:43
Absolutely.
1:01:43
People are hungry for good stuff.
1:01:46
And you know what?
1:01:47
Please be careful of your illustrator.
1:01:50
I can spot an AI book right now, and I don't care if you went to Fiverr up work chart, whatever that is, all the places.
1:01:58
I don't care.
1:01:59
There's good people and there's bad.
1:02:02
You got to know who you're getting for sure.
1:02:05
Absolutely.
1:02:06
Encouragement for readers, because I know we've talked a lot about the author side of it.
1:02:12
Why should children's book readers purchase your books?
1:02:17
Number one, because they're fun.
1:02:19
And number two, they get the kids involved.
1:02:22
And number three, you can story talk when you shut that.
1:02:27
And for me, that story talks important.
1:02:31
And it's hard for me.
1:02:33
I visit a lot of places and I talk about that to convince people because most of them want to pat themselves on the back and say, I read that book today.
1:02:42
Yeah, you read that book today.
1:02:44
What else do you do with that book?
1:02:46
I look at a book to see what else can I do when that book shuts?
1:02:51
What kind of art project can I have?
1:02:53
What can I do outside with those kids that relates to that book?
1:02:56
If it's a bug book, what are you going to do?
1:02:59
Many years ago in the early childhood field, we did Project Learning.
1:03:05
It came and it went away.
1:03:07
Came back a little bit and it went away.
1:03:09
Project Learning is priceless.
1:03:13
And Lillian Katz in Illinois, Dr.
1:03:16
Lillian Katz was one of my mentors.
1:03:20
I bought everything that lady ever put out because she knew what she was doing.
1:03:25
And my books, again, they're fun.
1:03:27
And for me, when I write, it has to be fun.
1:03:31
And this new one is going to be fun.
1:03:35
That's important.
1:03:37
Final thoughts here.
1:03:39
Mary Jo, is there anything that I may have not asked you or something that you'd like to share?
1:03:46
Final thoughts.
1:03:48
We just need wonderful picture books.
1:03:50
I buy picture books.
1:03:52
I follow Shannon Anderson.
1:03:55
I follow Tammy Sauer.
1:03:57
I follow Katie Mesner.
1:03:59
Do I know them personally?
1:04:00
I've had breakfast with Shannon and I hauled her around Newburgh.
1:04:03
I've had breakfast with Tammy Sauer.
1:04:05
She didn't even know who I was.
1:04:07
And I've met Kate Mesner.
1:04:09
That has nothing to do with why I buy their books.
1:04:12
They're wonderful.
1:04:14
And I analyze them.
1:04:15
I do.
1:04:16
I'm fascinated.
1:04:18
I love rhyming books, but I have also purchased very bad rhyming books.
1:04:25
I return them when I they're not good.
1:04:28
If you're going to do a rhyming book, please get on here and take those classes on the meter.
1:04:34
Take those classes on the rhyme because I've written over a hundred songs and many of them rhyme.
1:04:43
I had some poems that I wrote.
1:04:46
They were published in my resource books.
1:04:49
I look at them now after all the writing classes I've taken.
1:04:54
Yes, and I've fixed them.
1:04:56
And I have fixed them.
1:04:58
So do your thing.
1:05:00
Love this world and keep those good books coming.
1:05:04
Right on.
1:05:05
Mary Jo, thank you so much for being a guest on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors Podcast.
1:05:11
Your generosity of time, your insights will significantly benefit aspiring authors and readers.
1:05:18
We promise to provide our audience with links to Mary Jo's website.
1:05:23
It's a fantastic website, her social media and her books.
1:05:27
And if you've enjoyed this episode, please hit the subscribe button to listen to future episodes.
1:05:33
And feel free to share this episode with anyone inspired by or who enjoys hearing about Mary Jo and her children's books, including the predictable Persimmon.
1:05:46
Thank you, Mary Jo, for having me.