The Publishing Performance Show

Sheryl Bass of Be Kind Publishing - Self-Publishing Success: How PR Skills Transformed a Children's Book Launch

• Teddy Smith • Episode 89

Share episode

Sheryl Bass is a children's author and book PR expert with a master's degree in social work and journalism. Her Baby Dragon series focuses on social emotional learning for children, teaching important life lessons through engaging stories. Starting from a flash of inspiration during a sneeze 15 years ago, Sheryl brought her first book "Baby Dragon's Big Sneeze" to life through self-publishing after traditional publishing routes proved unsuccessful. She runs Be Kind Publishing, emphasizing kindness and social emotional development in children's literature.

In this episode:

  • Origins of "Baby Dragon's Big Sneeze" from a sneeze inspiration
  • Importance of social emotional learning in children's books
  • Working with developmental editors to strengthen storylines
  • Finding illustrators through self-publishing resources
  • Understanding work-for-hire contracts with illustrators
  • Self-publishing vs traditional publishing in children's literature
  • Using pubby.co for obtaining book reviews
  • PR strategies for children's book authors
  • Marketing through podcasts and in-person events
  • Building a children's book series


Resources mentioned:


Book Recommendations:

  • "Hunger for Words" by Christina Hunger - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B092DYHW2K?&linkCode=ll1&tag=pubperf-20&linkId=400c65572fa1761b41f901ed6233057c&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl


Connect with Sheryl Bass:


Connect with Teddy Smith:

Support the show

[00:00:00] Teddy Smith: Hello everyone and welcome to the Publishing Performance Show. Today I'm really happy to be joined by Sheryl Bass, who is a children's author and a book PR expert. So thank you for joining the call, Sheryl. 

[00:00:16] Sheryl Bass: Thank you for having me. 

[00:00:17] Teddy Smith: So why don't you tell me a bit about your book. So you've got the two books, the two children's books live at the moment in your baby Dragon series.

[00:00:23] Teddy Smith: So why don't you tell me a bit about why you wrote those books in the first place? 

[00:00:27] Sheryl Bass: Well, the first book came about it's, it's called Baby Dragon's Big Sneeze. And it's about a dragon who is flying around happy, carefree, and catches a cold somehow. And sneezes and accidentally burns down a village.

[00:00:41] Sheryl Bass: And everybody in the village is really mad at him. And they all wanna attack him and hurt him. And they assume he did it on purpose. But a little girl goes to his cave to get his side of the story and finds out that he indeed has a cold and didn't mean to do this, but he doesn't have parents that can help him.

[00:00:59] Sheryl Bass: He hatched alone in a cave, and so she gets the townspeople to help him get well, and in turn he helps them rebuild. So it's about not making assumptions about others about forgiveness, about accountability. Teamwork, friendship, all of those sorts of things. And that came about actually because about 15 years ago, I was walking down the street and I sneezed really hard and I had the ridiculous thought.

[00:01:26] Sheryl Bass: It's a good thing I'm not a dragon, because if I were, this would've done a lot of damage. And then I thought, oh, this is a children's book. And so I went home, wrote it put it away, didn't do anything with it until about. Five years ago, I tried getting it published traditionally, and that was not successful, but then I decided to go ahead and self-publish it, and that's how how that first one came about.

[00:01:50] Teddy Smith: Awesome. So why did you write this particular tale? Because your books have a bit of a moral to their stories. They're, they're very friendly for kids. Why did you write this particular story? 

[00:02:00] Sheryl Bass: Well, the, the whole idea of the moral social emotional learning is very important to me. I have a master's degree in social work, so, social emotional learning is basically teaching kids a lot of those soft skills that adults.

[00:02:16] Sheryl Bass: Adult employers look for in employees. Are they a team player? Are they able to take accountability and apologize when they've done something wrong? Do they share with others? All of those types of things. It, it's, it's great to teach that to kids. They're more malleable and, and easy to, get their brains to, to think in that sort of way than it is for an adult who has already have, has their habits built in over years and so on.

[00:02:42] Sheryl Bass: So, I thought if I could get those lessons in, in a way that's palatable and enjoyable for kids, that's what I really wanted to do and that's why I named my publishing house be kind publishing because I like the, it sort of is a riff on the expression. It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.

[00:03:02] Sheryl Bass: So, that's, that's my goal with these books, to have those sorts of messages. 

[00:03:06] Teddy Smith: Nice. It's a bit like my, my life motto is, don't be a dick. 

[00:03:11] Sheryl Bass: Well, there you go. There it is. And easier to say it. Yeah. In, in that way. 

[00:03:15] Teddy Smith: It sounds like you had a bit of a flash of inspiration when you had this huge sneeze and you came home and had to just get the story out as quickly as possible.

[00:03:23] Teddy Smith: So tell me a bit about your writing process to get that story out. What did that look like? 

[00:03:28] Sheryl Bass: Well, that writing process was sort of fast and furious. It came out sort of as like a sneeze. It was just sort of this burst of creative energy and but my creative process can be different for different things.

[00:03:41] Sheryl Bass: I do PR for a living and I have, master's degree in journalism. And so I've done a a bunch of different types of writing before and I, sometimes it's slower going than other times, but usually what comes to me is a first line, a good first line. And when that flash of insight happens, then I know I need to sit down and see what else comes.

[00:04:03] Sheryl Bass: And, I often need to go away from it and then come back to it. I can't get it all to come out in one fell swoop. So I know that about myself and so I just have patience with myself and let myself have those breaks, whether it's work related writing or whether it's writing for my my book.

[00:04:21] Teddy Smith: Yeah. So what was the process, right? Did you know what you were doing for writing a children's book though? Did what did that actual process for writing the book look like? 

[00:04:30] Sheryl Bass: Do you mean? You mean like did I know how I was gonna find my illustrator and all of those other things? No, I 

[00:04:35] Teddy Smith: mean, did you know how you're gonna structure the story?

[00:04:38] Teddy Smith: And so when you came to write it, did you literally just write it down as fast as you can? Or did you have a particular sort of structure you wanted to follow? 

[00:04:44] Sheryl Bass: I started just writing it and it, it's just started coming to me. And then I worked with an editor and she did what's called a developmental edit, right?

[00:04:53] Sheryl Bass: That's the first edit and the developmental edit. Was to find any holes in my story. That didn't make sense. So the first draft or so of Baby Dragon's, big sneeze, didn't have any explanation about where his parents were, but it was the editor who said, well, wait a minute. Why is he beseeching these townspeople to help him where his parents, if he's a baby dragon, shouldn't there be parents that are helping him?

[00:05:17] Sheryl Bass: And so, then I went back and I wrote an extra stanza or so about. The fact that he hatched alone in a cave. And I had the illustrations go along with that of the eggshell, you know, in the cave and, and, and all of that. So, her helping me find holes in my story was what brought about extra parts that made it flow a little better.

[00:05:39] Teddy Smith: Nice. Where did you find your developmental editor, and how did you choose which one to work with? 

[00:05:44] Sheryl Bass: I found her actually through a Facebook group. I, I was involved in several different face and I still am in several Facebook groups for self-publishing authors. And I posted a question, you know, how do you, I.

[00:05:58] Sheryl Bass: Find an editor and find someone who you can trust and isn't necessarily going to steal your idea. Do you have them sign a non-disclosure? What do you do? And then this one woman Laura Boche, B-O-N-T-J-E, responded and said that she is a children's book editor. And she gave me a link to her website and she said she could do a free initial edit to, just to show me how she does her editing.

[00:06:23] Sheryl Bass: And she explained that. You don't do a non-disclosure. Usually a good editor belongs to several. Sorry, several. Organizations that if they were to steal someone's idea, they would be banished from these organizations. Yeah. And that you are showing yourself to be a newbie if you try to have have an editor sign such a document.

[00:06:48] Sheryl Bass: So to not do that so I found her that way, but I found my illustrator, I found my my website. Creator, I found a lot of my vendors through a woman called April Cox. She has a business called Self-Publishing Made Simple, and I found her because I'm a member of the Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and they have on their website you can watch archived videos.

[00:07:16] Sheryl Bass: And there was an archive video of this woman who was, april Cox and she was talking about how self-publishing, how she walks people through the process and you get on a Zoom call with her and she actually helps you file with the Library of Congress so you can get it copyrighted. And how to get the little ISPN codes, which are like the little UPC symbols on the back of the book, how to do all of those types of things that a first time and even second time self-publishing author.

[00:07:45] Sheryl Bass: May not know how to do. So she's there to sort of hold, hold your hand through that process. 

[00:07:50] Teddy Smith: That's very interesting. What was, so what was it like working with April? What, what, what did she teach you that maybe you would've missed? 

[00:07:58] Sheryl Bass: I would not have known, excuse me, how to, how to upload my books onto Amazon and I would not have known what IngramSpark was.

[00:08:07] Sheryl Bass: And IngramSpark is what allows me to have my books available on target.com, barnes noble.com, and other associated. Walmart.com, other associated websites and allows it to be available to libraries and so on. So she showed me about that. She showed me how to get a copyrighted. She had all the vendors I would not have known anything about.

[00:08:30] Sheryl Bass: I. Say, work for hire for example, that is something that you want your illustrator, most people want their illustrator to be work for hire because that means that you then own the rights to your characters. So if you ever want to then do a stuffed animal or plushy or something of your characters after your first book, or you wanna have a sequel or whatever you.

[00:08:55] Sheryl Bass: It own those characters. After that, those, those illustrations are completed, the first illustrations. So, you want to have a contract that is work for hire with your illustrator. So she told me about all of that inside baseball, kind of, information that I, I didn't know about until I worked with her.

[00:09:16] Sheryl Bass: Wow, so 

[00:09:17] Teddy Smith: that's really interesting. 

[00:09:18] Sheryl Bass: Yeah, so she became my mentor, basically. 

[00:09:21] Teddy Smith: Yeah. No, that is really interesting. Now you just mentioned there about the process of working with a illustrator and making sure that it's right for hire rather than they've got any rights over the book. Now, what was it like working with an illustrator?

[00:09:33] Teddy Smith: Did you come up with the ideas for the drawings yourself or was it a case of here's my book, go and write something? 

[00:09:39] Sheryl Bass: So I different people have different personalities about that type of thing. I am a little bit of a control freak. So, I really, in my mind had my idea of what I wanted my dragon to look like, what I wanted the people in the town to be wearing, all of that.

[00:09:53] Sheryl Bass: And they were thankfully, very responsive. Everything was over email. We had one or two Zoom calls, but it was mostly through email because the illustrator is in, india. So there was a time difference and things like that. And so we did a lot through emails and he would email me the drafts and so on, and I would send him back.

[00:10:14] Sheryl Bass: Things that I found on the internet, like this is I want my dragon to glow. You know, I, I like illustrations that have a little bit of a glow to them. So I found illustrations that looked similar to what I was. Wanting in terms of that type of, of aesthetic. And what I wanted the people to wear, I wanted them in Viking type garb.

[00:10:36] Sheryl Bass: So I found images online of people in Viking clothing and sent them to him and things like that. And in this scene, I want this to be happening. And he's wearing this and he's sitting here and he, you know, all of that kind of detail. I did that, but a lot of people are, are more hands off with that and they say, you know, this is what the page says.

[00:10:59] Sheryl Bass: Show me what you want the dragon to look like. Show me what you want the characters to, you know? But I liked having that creative control, and that's one of the things I really like about self-publishing versus traditional publishing, because with traditional publishing, the publishing house chooses your illustrator.

[00:11:14] Sheryl Bass: So they choose, you don't get to world build in the same way that you do. When you are, you've picked your own illustrator, you've described to them in great detail what every page is gonna look like. That gives you a lot more creative control, which I really enjoyed. 

[00:11:29] Teddy Smith: Awesome. So when you did come to think about self-publishing versus publishing, was publishing ever an option that you wanted to explore?

[00:11:38] Sheryl Bass: I tried to, yes. I, I sent my book to pretty much every English speaking. You know, publishing house and and every literary agent. So they've all heard from me. But none of them were interested. Unfortunately. I think part of it is it's very, very competitive with children's books right now. Yeah.

[00:11:58] Sheryl Bass: And. There are people like Jimmy Fallon and the Evening Talk show hosts and so on who everybody gets in on publishing a children's book famous people and so on. And so if you're famous, you've got the name recognition and it's less of a risk for a publishing house to. Take you on. So, ironically, those that can afford more easily to self-publish are the ones that are not self-publishing.

[00:12:20] Sheryl Bass: They're the ones that are taking up the, say there's, say each publishing house has maybe 10 slots in a year for children's picture books. You know, those slots are taken up by. All these, the, the famous people and then the people that don't have a name recognition, then they end up self-publishing.

[00:12:38] Sheryl Bass: But it's leveled the playing field. It's really, I mean, I've gotten numerous awards for both of my books, and so that, that feels really validating after Yeah, of course. Being protected by every single, every single yeah. Traditional. Yeah. 

[00:12:53] Teddy Smith: Now, well obviously when you do yourself publishing, you've got to do things like the marketing and stuff yourself.

[00:12:57] Teddy Smith: Now you are coming from a PR background, so I'm guessing you've got quite a good grip on some of the marketing, but can you tell me some of the marketing tips you use to get your book to make as many sales as possible? 

[00:13:07] Sheryl Bass: So, getting on podcasts has been definitely a positive. If, if a person is able to do that, if you can hire a PR person that may be necessary, at least for the first few months at, at your launch to, to get that.

[00:13:22] Sheryl Bass: Now, getting the reviews. A there's a good way to get book reviews for your book, and I know a lot of people struggle with that when they first publish a book. There is a website called Pubby, PUBB y.co. You're gonna wanna put an m on the end of it, but don't, yeah, it's pubby co not com. And that website you can, you put your book on the website and other people review it, and you review other people's books, but it's not a quid pro quo.

[00:13:49] Sheryl Bass: So it's not like I review your book and in exchange you review mine. Yeah, I review yours and you review some person X. Yeah. So everybody's reviewing somebody else's. Book and you earn this currency on the website called snaps, and those snaps are converted then to having people review your book.

[00:14:08] Sheryl Bass: And I've gotten. I would say probably at least half of my reviews have come for, both of my books have come through puppy. Yep. So that's been very helpful. And you can see, you do have to review other people's books, but you can see on there how many words the other people's books are. So if you're a children's book author, you know, you can review other people's books that are also only a thousand words or less.

[00:14:34] Sheryl Bass: So you don't have to slog through, you know, a thousand page treatise in order to get your book reviewed. Mm-hmm. And you need to kind of be looking at what else is in the industry anyway, so I figured, you know, it's, I need to be kept informed about what other types of books there are in that genre.

[00:14:54] Sheryl Bass: So I'm reading other people's and, and they're giving me reviews from mine, so it's. 

[00:14:58] Teddy Smith: Yeah, pub Puppy is awesome. I, I've used it quite a lot. I'm, I'm trying to get the the owner to come on the podcast to chat about how it works. Oh, okay. What their plans are. We'll have to see how that goes. Right now, obviously you've got a PR background, so did you use any PR techniques and for your children's book and what were they?

[00:15:14] Teddy Smith: I. 

[00:15:15] Sheryl Bass: So, I wrote a press release. And you can, if you, you know, need to write one yourself, there are, you could go on a website, you know, on, on it, on Google and type in how to write a press release. There's a format that gen generally press releases have. And so I wrote a press release. I sent it to, a lot of different podcasts. I had access as a PR person to a database of podcasts and I was able to find podcasts through that. And I'm still going on podcasts for both of my books, and I intend to do that. I have a third book that's probably gonna come out either later this year or next year. That will also be in the series.

[00:15:53] Sheryl Bass: So, so that's how, how I did that and I didn't usually if it's, if it's somebody else I, I work with a couple of PR agencies that help authors and we also do media training so that they know how best to present themselves and what the talking points would be about their book and so on. So, so that piece I was able to do, but things like advertising, Amazon ads and, and aco, which is, you know, your.

[00:16:21] Sheryl Bass: Basically your return on investment when you buy an Amazon ad. Yeah. All of that kind of stuff. I had to sort of learn as I, as I went. I didn't know that side of it at all. 

[00:16:30] Teddy Smith: Yeah. So you were sort of starting from scratch. It's interesting to hear from your PR perspective what worked and the, the fact that podcast works quite well for you.

[00:16:38] Teddy Smith: Yes. Did you try and find. Children's book podcasts, or was it just general writers podcasts, 

[00:16:45] Sheryl Bass: writing podcasts, children's book podcasts also podcasts for women entrepreneurs. Anything that would fit what parent podcasts. You know, so that's another thing is try to find all different ways.

[00:17:00] Sheryl Bass: Angles to your, to your book, you know, what your book is about, or what genre it is, or what your background was before you wrote that book. Those types of things to try and find angles for the podcast hosts and types of podcasts that you can possibly be on. Yeah. Podcasts I found particularly helpful, but I've done other things too.

[00:17:20] Sheryl Bass: I've done radio and, and I haven't really done TV for my books yet. But I do hope to do that and in-person sales is very helpful. Okay, so there's a conference I go to every year that's for kindergarten, first grade, preschool, kindergarten, and first grade teachers. And so that's been very helpful for, I sell my books, I get a booth there, and that's been, something that helps with sales being at a farmer's market or you know, you're a local indie bookstore. You know, those are some things that you can do to try and do more in-person sales because that's, you get a higher royalty when you do the in-person sales. 

[00:18:00] Teddy Smith: Yeah. What if someone is going to work with a PR person like yourself?

[00:18:04] Teddy Smith: What does that process look like? 

[00:18:08] Sheryl Bass: It is very different depending on which PR agency you work with. Everybody has their own processes and you know, some. PR agencies will guarantee a certain number of press hits in a certain period of time. And you know, others, it depends. It depends on what your goals are too.

[00:18:25] Sheryl Bass: Are you wanting mostly podcasts? Are you wanting mostly local tv, radio, print, that sort of thing? Are you wanting them to help you get into libraries and bookstores? In your area they could maybe make calls and, and help with that process. So, you know, and they can also, some of them have a digital arm and they can help you if you wanna have I.

[00:18:49] Sheryl Bass: You know, Facebook posts and things like that about your book, they can use Canva and other types of software and make the, the posts look really attractive and help you get get clients or customers book readers that way. So, so it looks a little different depending on what PR agency, what your goals are and what what PR agency you work with.

[00:19:10] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Interesting. I. 

[00:19:12] Sheryl Bass: Yeah. 

[00:19:13] Teddy Smith: Well you've, you've listened two books, so what's your plans for the future of the series? 

[00:19:18] Sheryl Bass: The plan is to have a third book. I. I don't really wanna tell you what's gonna happen to the dragon in the third book 'cause it's, it's so, I don't wanna, because it has, it hasn't been published yet.

[00:19:29] Sheryl Bass: But I'll tell you the second book in the first book, the Baby Dragon, you know that he, he doesn't have a family and so the, the people in the town help him get well and he helps them rebuild well. In the second book baby Dragon finds his family that expands on the themes of the first book. Of him.

[00:19:48] Sheryl Bass: So he starts to, he's living with the townspeople for a few months and he's starting to feel really out of place because he doesn't have, and he, he doesn't know any other dragons that look like him. So he goes on a quest to try and to find his family. And along the way, he meets other my mystical creatures like an elf, a fairy, a unicorn, helps them with various different problems along the way.

[00:20:10] Sheryl Bass: And I. And then, well, I'll tell you, give a spoiler alert for this because it's already been published, but spoiler alert, he comes to realize by the end of the book that the family that he has is really the humans that have been helping him all along. So he does not find to adult dragons that. You know, he doesn't find anyone else that looks like him.

[00:20:32] Sheryl Bass: And so I think it's, the message in the second book is more about found family. It's particularly good for kids who are either adopted or have a non-traditional family structure. So, or blended families, that sort of thing. 

[00:20:46] Teddy Smith: Great. Sounds really interesting. Looking forward to seeing those books and we'll be able to speak to you again about those when they come out too.

[00:20:53] Sheryl Bass: Well, thanks so much for coming. Well, the second one has come out, but the third one hasn't. The third 

[00:20:56] Teddy Smith: one, that's what I mean. Yeah. The third one. Yeah. Yes. Well, thank you so much for coming on. It's been great to chat to you. I've really enjoyed hearing about your. Especially your PR expertise and how that's fitted into your marketing of the books, I think people will be able to take away a lot from them.

[00:21:09] Teddy Smith: If people wanna find your books, where's the best place to find them. 

[00:21:12] Sheryl Bass: So, you can find them on amazon.com barnes and noble.com, walmart.com, target.com. But the cheapest place that you can find them is be kind publishing.com and that's my website. Be kind publishing.com. So be kind publishing.com and the books are less.

[00:21:32] Sheryl Bass: There than anywhere else you can buy them. And you also get 10 free coloring pages when you go through my website. Oh, nice. To look at my books. Yep. 

[00:21:41] Teddy Smith: We'll put a link to it in the show notes. People can go and find it. 

[00:21:43] Sheryl Bass: Okay, great. Thank you so much. 

[00:21:45] Teddy Smith: Thank you so much for coming on. It's been great to chat to you.

[00:21:47] Teddy Smith: So just before we go, there's a question we ask some most guests and that's what's the book that you recommend Everyone should be reading? 

[00:21:53] Sheryl Bass: Okay. There is a book by a woman who is a speech pathologist who taught her dog to talk using talk in quotes, using buttons that you can prerecord your own voice saying certain words like walk or outside or treat.

[00:22:13] Sheryl Bass: I, I don't wanna get my dog all riled up. You record your voice saying those things, and you can teach your dog to press the buttons when they want certain things, and they're actually. Communicating with you that way. And so, the woman's last name is Hunger. So she started a company called Hunger for Words, right?

[00:22:31] Sheryl Bass: I'm not sure, I don't remember if that's the name of the book itself, but if you type in hunger for words I think her first name is Christina or something like that. And her last name is Hunger. If you do a Google search, dog talking book, something like that, dog buttons, hunger for words, you'll find it.

[00:22:47] Sheryl Bass: And you can train your dog to talk using these special buttons and you can buy the buttons on Amazon or elsewhere as well. So that's 

[00:22:55] Teddy Smith: amazing. 

[00:22:56] Sheryl Bass: It's a nonfiction book, but but my dogs will ask me, they'll press the button, they'll ask to play when only one. 

[00:23:04] Teddy Smith: That's amazing. Well, thank you so much for that recommendation.

[00:23:06] Teddy Smith: I'm sure the dog reader is now gonna be out Amazon buying stuff. So thank you very much for coming on and we'll speak again soon. 

[00:23:14] Sheryl Bass: Okay, great. Thanks so much for having me. 

[00:23:16] Teddy Smith: Thank you so much for tuning into the Publishing performance podcast. I really hope you found today's episode inspiring. I love chatting to authors, writers, and people in the publishing world.

[00:23:25] Teddy Smith: Now, just before we wrap up, let me tell you about publishing performance, the number one platform for authors who want to increase Amazon book sales, but I'm not really sure where to start. Now, this show is all about helping you to sell more books. And if you are looking to boost your publishing game and to maximize your book's potential on Amazon, then publishing Formants is designed to help authors just like you to grow your readership and to reach a much wider audience.

[00:23:51] Teddy Smith: Now I know who the Amazon ads can be slightly complicated, which is why publishing Formants is like having a personalized ad account manager to create your ad campaigns to choose your best keywords. And to make adjustments in real time. Now, if you are investing in ads, you really want to make sure that your investment is being used effectively and publishing performance does just that It aims to make your budget go further, improve your organic rank, and target keywords more effectively.

[00:24:17] Teddy Smith: Just go to publishing performance.com to get started with Amazon ads for just $1.