Local Author Shares Insights on Book Writing, Publishing + the Promotion Process

Inspiration Behind Henry the Brave

Adam: A new venture. I was reading it
before you came, and it's amazing — the concepts that can be distilled down,
the important concepts, into a children's book, and how applicable they are for
adults as well. I guess we can start — who and what was the inspiration behind
Henry the Brave?

Meg: Henry is my nephew, who is a
childhood cancer survivor. He was diagnosed just before his second birthday.
When he was diagnosed, I just wrote this little thing for him: “I'm strong, I'm
tough, I'm armed with love. I will fight. I'm Henry the Brave.” I just wrote it
one day. That really kind of stuck, and he was always Henry the Brave to our
family. He is now seven, seven and a half. He's coming up on five years
cancer-free, so he's a success story for sure. But throughout that whole
experience, there were just a lot of moments of inspiration — watching a
two-year-old battle cancer, things that you can learn from them, just the
experience that our family went through. I thought it'd be cool to put that in
a book.

A Two-Year-Old's Perspective

Adam: As he was diagnosed and went
through treatment, and I'm sure family and friends were rallying behind him —
did you put yourself back in the shoes of a young kid and try to understand his
perspective as a youngster?

Meg: Yeah, absolutely. And that was
one of the things that stuck with me. A cancer diagnosis is terrible at any
age, but a two-year-old — they have no idea what's going on. They don't really
understand why they're stuck in the hospital, why they can't go home. There's
no context for anything. Why they're getting poked and prodded, why Mom and Dad
are making them go through this. It just stuck with me — that's even more
traumatic. And as the adults in the situation, there's really not much you can
do about it. But it was also cool to see — the family and then just the
caregivers, the nurses, the doctors, how they deal with that. Being with a
child who doesn't really know what's happening, but trying to still make them
feel safe and comfortable, and really also just having moments where they can
still be a kid. They're stuck in a hospital, but how can there still be some
play and some fun and some normalcy as well?

From Journals to a Book

Adam: You'd mentioned that you had
done some writing — journals and other mediums. At what point in the process
did you start to have the idea to write a book? Was it therapeutic for you and
the family? Was it always directed towards Henry, once he got a little bit
older and could understand the context of what was happening?

Meg: I think pretty early on, I
thought that it would be really just a cool thing to take such a negative and
traumatic experience and have something positive come out of it. I do think it
was also therapeutic for me just to put — I'm just a big believer in the power
of words and putting experiences on paper. When I would do that for the
experience, for me, that's not something that Henry would ever read or I would
really share with people — just my personal experience. And so that kind of
morphed into, well, what if I tried to put that into a children's book? It was
several years before I really decided to move forward with it. I had this idea,
and every once in a while it'd come to the forefront of my mind again, and I'd
be like, I should follow through with that. The story would progress in my
head, and I would just jot down little notes. And then a couple years ago,
finally I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna do it. At that point, I
thought it would be much more of a passion project. Maybe I just throw
something together. And then as the project progressed, it just turned into
what it is now — a much bigger final product than I thought.

Deciding to Self-Publish

Adam: It's really obviously
inspirational. I'm sure you learned a lot about the process of publishing
something, creating something, manufacturing something, distributing something.
There's always a lot of creativity, but in this process it's not just about the
creativity and the writing process — you also have to create the actual
physical product. What did that process look like? When did you decide to
self-publish? What were your options for actually creating the book?

Meg: I think it's one of those things
— it's really good I didn't know the reality of what it would look like before
I went into it. That's one thing about just being naïve. It's a common thread
when you talk to people that have done something hard: if you knew how hard it
was going to be when you started, you probably wouldn't take the first step.
Honestly, when I started, all I was thinking of was the story and writing it.
And then when I decided to actually turn it into a book, it was first figuring
out, okay, what does that look like? Self-publishing, finding a publisher. I
was pretty clear early on — getting published as just a kind of no-name passion
project kind of thing, it's pretty tough. So I thought, well, that's fine, I'll
just go the self-published route.

Meg: But with that comes — normally if
you write a book, the publisher handles the illustrations, the editing, the
final making of the book itself. So with self-publishing came figuring out all
those other pieces. And it's a good story of — you can, if you have the
internet, figure out how to do anything. I just Googled everything from how to
write a children's book, how to print a book, how to find an illustrator.
Throughout the process, I was just connected with some really incredible
resources.

Finding the Illustrator

Meg: Once I had the story kind of
finished, I think the biggest step was finding an illustrator. I was living in
Chicago at the time, and on my neighborhood Facebook page in the area I was
living, I just said, hey, does anyone know an illustrator? By career, a
student, hobby, anything — I'd love to connect. I got just flooded with
responses, and I went through the process of meeting with different
illustrators, talking about the process, their pricing, all the different ins
and outs of that. Through that, I found my illustrator, Ben, who was just
really incredible. From the moment I talked to him, I just knew that he was the
right person for the job.

Adam: Had Ben — did he specialize in
children's books?

Meg: He's actually a teacher, and he
does illustrations and stuff kind of on the side. He had done a coloring book
for someone in Chicago, and that's how I got connected with him. He had done, I
think, one other children's book before that, and now he's doing a little bit
more of that. But still teacher by day. The second I talked to him and he
shared some ideas for illustrations, he sent me some character concepts, and
that really in my mind just took the story and brought it to life. From then
on, I could really see the story, along with just reading it.

Meg: It was a really flexible and
fluid process with him. A lot of back and forth — he lives in Indiana, so none
of it was in person. It was all just via email and phone, just going back and
forth. He did an incredible job, and it's really his illustrations that brought
everything to life.

The Publishing Process

Adam: You were in charge of the
creative side, finding all your vendors and partners to help you out, managing
the project. How long did the whole process take?

Meg: When I really decided that I was
going to go forward with this, it was probably about a year of finalizing the
story, working on it here and there. And then another year to really do all the
illustrations, the printing, working with an editor. It was one of those things
where I would work on it a lot for a month and then, you know, life would get
in the way — work and other things. So about two years of semi-committed work
from start to finish.

The Writing Process

Adam: What is your process for some of
the creative things that you do? What is your process for getting the ideas and
the thoughts out of your brain onto paper — not necessarily in a finished form?
Do you record things on your phone? Do you wake up in the middle of the night
with aha moments and, like comedians, take out your notepad and write it down?

Meg: For me, it does normally come in
— not when I'm like, “I'm going to sit down and write.” That's normally when
nothing comes, you can't force it. I get a lot of inspiration when I'm either
outside, on walks, in nature, or working out. Those are usually the times when
I'm grabbing my phone and jotting down notes. Typically I wait for something
like that to come, and then once I have that little nugget of inspiration, I
can sit down with my notebook and just hash it out. I'm really big into free
writing — just thoughts flow. Don't edit it, don't think about what you're
saying, just let it go. If it takes a weird left turn, just go with it. Because
I think that's just how I think, and I think that's where things come up that
maybe you weren't necessarily going in with the intention of, but to me that's
kind of where the inspiration lies.

Adam: It's interesting, because I've
done a little bit of writing — I was in a band for a long time and wrote some
songs, and have written other things — work-related projects. I've always found
the process of formal writing to almost inhibit creativity at times. I also
drive a lot, so what I often do is just start thinking about something — it
could be a product idea, a marketing idea, really any problem that we have. And
you're right, just start getting it out of your head. Then over time you have a
log of these ideas, and you can start to pull in experts to help hash it out —
in your case, illustrators. I'm sure the book vendor and other people had
certain ideas throughout the process. But it does seem as though, at times,
especially in a business context, the more formal something has to be, the less
creativity is actually involved and the worse the final product is. Some of the
chaos and the random ideas and the random interactions oftentimes produce some
of the best stuff.

Working With an Editor

Meg: Absolutely. I worked with a
really incredible editor on this, and we talked about that a lot. She basically
said, like, your job when writing is — you're the idea person. You don't need
to necessarily be the most technical writer. She said, that's my job. And my
job is — I can't come up with the idea. She's like, basically, I want you to
get your story out. Don't over-analyze it. And then we'll have a lot of back
and forth, and the technical stuff, I'll deal with that.

Meg: Once she gave me that freedom, it
was just like — ah, yeah. Because I had the idea, but then I was really caught
up on how to write it. And also, I mean, it's a children's book. So one would
think it's not that hard to write a 32-page picture book. But there's actually
— I mean, it's surprising. To fit a lot of concepts or a story into that
amount, and not being someone who writes in story form. Hearing her say that in
the beginning gave me a lot of freedom and helped with that process.

Adam: And there's multiple disciplines
going on here. It's writing, it's illustrating, it's putting the context of the
audience — it's a sad but then a happy story, and flowing between those two
things. If it's a standard book, it's some text, no illustrations, and you can
kind of focus on that part of it. But I was reading it, and I was immediately
brought back to being a five-year-old, six-year-old — just putting yourself in
that position. I think there's probably a lot of lessons for kids, parents,
teachers, doctors, nurses, anybody that has to work with kids in that
situation.

A Book for Any Kid

Meg: I did want it to be a book that,
yes, it's about cancer and that's the inspiration, but I wanted it to be a book
that any kid can enjoy when they pick it up, and any parent can enjoy. Because
there's good lessons and there's a good story — it's kind of this hero's
journey. So whether you know anything or have any experience with cancer
doesn't really matter. If you do, obviously it's going to have a much more
personal meaning. And that was the other thing the editor was really good at
working on with me. The initial story went through a lot of changes. The
original was very much more Henry-specific, much more my experience and my
family's experience. We went back and forth a lot about, do we want this final
story to be Henry's very specific story, or a story that can connect with a
larger audience? And how do we still keep the important aspects of it, and the
aspects that feel true to me and Henry's journey, with still reaching those
other connection points? So that was a really interesting part of the process
too.

The One-Stop-Shop Option

Adam: When you were assessing your
various options, did you reach out to any of the turnkey book creators and
publishers? I know there's one company called Book in a Box. I don't know if
you're familiar with them, but I had heard about them many years ago. When my
wife and I bought our first house, the realtor had mentioned that she was
interested in writing a book, and I said, oh, you should check out this company
called Book in a Box. Their business model was to more or less create this
ghost-writing process where you could go to their office, sit down for two
days, interact with their staff, and extract everything out of the author's
head. They had this rigid process for the technical side of it. Our realtor
actually ended up — I found out six months later — that conversation inspired
her enough that she went and contacted them and wrote a book.

Meg: I did not. I didn't even know
that exactly. There are a few, I'm sure, that probably could have saved me a
few steps. It really could have. Having that one-stop shop would have been
really beneficial for a lot of reasons. Because finding individual vendors for
each thing was slightly overwhelming.

Adam: But you learned a lot.

Meg: But I learned a lot, yeah. And I
ended up working with some incredible people. So that's awesome.

What's Next?

Adam: So when's the next book?

Meg: I get asked that a lot. My answer
is always, I'm not sure. I never thought that I would write a children's book,
so I don't know that another one's in the cards. It might be. I think right now
there's just a lot more that I want to do with this book and focus I want to
put on it. That being said, I have talked to so many people who've put the idea
in my head about a potential series. You know, so many different ways you could
go with Henry the Brave — whether I stick with a cancer theme, or Henry the Brave
and just different kind of life things that he deals with and different topics.
So, we'll see. TBD.

Adam: I have another niece who said,
‘Aunt Meg, I want a book next.’

Meg: You set a precedent for your
family. Everybody gets a book.

Adam: I know Becca's talked about
doing a book on business concepts, work concepts, engineering, designing — ABCs
of Manufacturing.

Meg: Yes.

Adam: So I've also thought — I think
everybody, a lot of people think about it. Very few people actually go ahead
and do it, so that's awesome. But a few years ago, I was talking to my — she's
seven now, she must have been three or four at the time — she'd always talked
about she wanted to open up a bakery someday. She wanted to be a baker and she
wanted to start a business with her cousin and start a bakery. We'd be driving
the car, and I would ask her, okay, so how are you going to find customers? And
she had a very simple response: well, we're going to open it on a busy street
and we're going to have a big sign. And then, okay, well, what are you going to
sell? She's like, we don't want to have too much stuff, but we want to have
enough stuff so we can sell to a variety of people. Again, the simplicity in
the concepts and just how overcomplicated adults make things — I think that's
where a lot of the power is in the children's book, across a variety of topics.
It kind of brings people back to how simple things can be. I think more books
on a variety of topics would be a great idea.

Meg: Yeah, and hopefully you guys will
have a book coming soon too.

Adam: Yeah, that's awesome. What's the
next step, Becca?

Adam: I need to write it.

Distribution & Donations

Adam: Well, if you need help with —
not the writing process, but just getting connected with people, I've done a
lot of the legwork. So you have a website. Do you also distribute the book on
Amazon or any of the other —?

Meg: Right now it's through my website
or through Etsy. Not on Amazon right now — hopefully someday. And Lunar and
Lake, the local bookstore here, they sell it too. But yeah, mostly it's been
online distribution. And I do also — a big mission of the book is to be able to
donate a lot of books to children who are currently battling cancer, and also
donate some of the proceeds. That's been really successful too, of just being
able to partner with different childhood cancer nonprofits and either donate
books to put in care packages that go to hospitals, or through social media I
just reach out to families directly and ask if I can send them a book, if they
have a kid who has cancer.

Adam: Do you accept donations on the
site to help fund the book donation?

Meg: On the site you can do donations,
or I have a “buy one, give one” option, where you can buy one and also it's an
extra fee but it allows me to donate one. And then there's also a “sponsor a
book donation” program. That's been really incredible just to see the
outpouring of support. Sometimes I set up at vendor fairs or craft shows, and
people come by and say, well, I don't have anyone to buy a children's book for,
but absolutely, I would love to have a book donated on my behalf. It's been
really just cool to see the generosity and support from people.

Final Thoughts

Adam: So if folks want to go buy the
book, what's the website name?

Meg: The website is
LittleHeadProductions.com, or on Etsy you can search Henry the Brave. Both work
just fine. It has the different options to either sponsor a book donation, buy
a book, and a couple other little swag things on there as well.

Adam: Any tips, tricks, any final
thoughts for anybody else that might be thinking about doing this? Or anything
else you want to close on?

Meg: Tips and tricks — I think
honestly, it's one of those things, everyone says it: you just have to do it.
Just get started. And then just keep going. Don't think of the finish line.
Don't think of all the pieces. Just get started, take the next step, and just
keep pushing forward. Because I think at the end of the day, with this project,
there are a lot of reasons I'm proud of it, but the biggest one is just that
it's done. I did it. I followed through. It was an idea I had for a long time,
and finally I was like, all right, let's do it, see what happens.

Adam: That's great. And regardless of
what you design or engineer or make or manufacture or distribute, just the
parallels and the lessons learned — it's cool to have that perspective. Thank
you very much for coming on.

Meg: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for
having me. Stop by again.

Adam: All right.