Episode 6: Rosemary Rivera & Mario Menjivar – A Husband & Wife Self-Publishing Team

06/11/14 • 37 min

Let's Make Kids' Books - Children's Book Publishing Show

I’m back with a fun new episode for you this week. I recently interviewed a really fun couple named Rosemary Rivera & Mario Menjivar, who are a husband and wife team who create and self-publish children’s books! Rosemary is the author and marketing/PR person, and Mario is a former Disney animator who made the transition to illustrating his own books instead. They’ve released one book so far, called The Girl Who Couldn’t Draw, and are hard at work on their next book.

I sat down with them to talk about how they got started creating and publishing books, why they chose to self-publish, how they work together as a team (without getting divorced!), and much more.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

Why they switched from their original idea of animated shorts to a children’s book
Why they decided to self-publish instead of pursuing traditional publishers or TV studios
Their advice for other aspiring authors who are afraid of the technology and tools required for self-publishing
What they learned from their first book that they’re doing differently with their second book
Where to focus your marketing and promotional time, and how to avoid wasting lots of time
How marketing and PR play a key role in your book’s success
How their process works as a husband and wife team
Their goals for the future, and how they’re getting there
And much more!

More from Rosemary & Mario:

Moonbearcc.com – The home of Rosemary & Mario’s books
The Girl Who Couldn’t Draw – Their first children’s book
StoryCub – Recommended by Rosemary & Mario as a great promotional tool for your book!

Keep Listening:

Subscribe on iTunes – Please leave a review if you enjoy the show! It just takes a second and really helps get the word out.
Check out more episodes
Subscribe to Let’s Make Kids’ Books – Get emailed whenever I release new episodes or blog posts, and get my free “6 Steps to Self-Publishing a Children’s Book” checklist!

I sat down with them to talk about how they got started creating and publishing books, why they chose to self-publish, how they work together as a team (without getting divorced!), and much more.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

Why they switched from their original idea of animated shorts to a children’s book
Why they decided to self-publish instead of pursuing traditional publishers or TV studios
Their advice for other aspiring authors who are afraid of the technology and tools required for self-publishing
What they learned from their first book that they’re doing differently with their second book
Where to focus your marketing and promotional time, and how to avoid wasting lots of time
How marketing and PR play a key role in your book’s success
How their process works as a husband and wife team
Their goals for the future, and how they’re getting there
And much more!

More from Rosemary & Mario:

Moonbearcc.com – The home of Rosemary & Mario’s books
The Girl Who Couldn’t Draw – Their first children’s book
StoryCub – Recommended by Rosemary & Mario as a great promotional tool for your book!

Keep Listening:

Subscribe on iTunes – Please leave a review if you enjoy the show! It just takes a second and really helps get the word out.
Check out more episodes
Subscribe to Let’s Make Kids’ Books – Get emailed whenever I release new episodes or blog posts, and get my free “6 Steps to Self-Publishing a Children’s Book” checklist!

Previous Episode

Episode 5: Exciting Trends and News in Children’s Publishing

For this episode I did a quick little solo update about some interesting info I ran across this week in the world of children’s publishing. Listen to the episode, or you can read through my notes below, which cover most of what I talked about on the show.

Please let me know if you’d like me to do more of these “in the news” updates! I like sharing this stuff with you since I know it’s hard to keep up on everything going on in our industry.

Hope you enjoy!

Show Notes:

I have 2 interesting trends/updates to share with you today, and they’re especially exciting for self-published authors!

The first comes from an interesting article in Publisher’s Weekly. It has all kinds of sales data for children’s books over the past few years, and I noticed some interesting trends I wanted to mention.

1. The move to online buying of children’s books

The first is that in 2012 & 2013, the #1 place where children’s books were purchased was e-tailers. This is a huge shift from just a couple of years ago, when big bookstore chains dominated. Obviously part of this is Borders going out of business, but the move to buying online has finally reached children’s books.

Similarly, the % of children’s books bought online or on a device went from only 19% in 2010 up to 27% in 2013, and it’s growing every year.

One reason this makes me very happy for self-published authors is that the prevailing wisdom has been that if you’re not in bookstores, you’ll never get discovered. With more customers taking to Amazon and other e-tailers to buy their books, there’s a much better chance of you getting discovered.

Customers may not go looking for your book, but one thing Amazon is really good at is showing customers other books or authors they may be interested in. If you can get your book showing up in Amazon’s “also boughts” or if you take advantage of their KDP Select promotional tools, you can get in front of those customers who are finally making the switch to buying online.

There’s still a ways to go before we’ve reached the market penetration that self-published authors have seen in other genres like romance or thrillers, but we’re getting there.

2. Smashwords has a new way for self-published children’s authors to get into libraries

A big challenge for self-published authors has always been getting into libraries, but the indie distributor Smashwords just announced that they’re partnering with Overdrive, which is the country’s largest digital library distributor. Overdrive currently works with about 28,000 schools and libraries, which is a huge amount of reach.

Now even though this doesn’t mean that being on Smashwords will automatically get your book bought by libraries, the idea they’re talking about is to offer curated lists of bestselling Smashwords titles to libraries so that librarians don’t have to be familiar with authors to be willing to buy their books. This opens up a ton of opportunity if you can make headway on the Smashwords platform and get into their bestsellers lists.

Personally, I’ve never looked into Smashwords much because I’ve always felt that Amazon’s KDP Select promotional programs get you in front of the largest number of readers possible and make it worth forgoing other sales channels like Smashwords. But this is making me think that combined with the other services they offer, it’s worth giving them another look and really making a push to get into their bestseller lists.

I plan to do a lot more research into this Overdrive and Smashwords program, so make sure you subscribe to the blog at http://letsmakekidsbooks.com/subscribe so you can keep up with what I’m learning and sharing about their platform and this program in particular.

So those are two really cool trends that are making it better and better to be a self-published children’s author. I for one am really excited that the industry is shifting into the self-published author’s favor like other genres have done, and I’m glad that we’re getting in early instead of waiting until it’s too competitive and saturated to be able to make a splash.

That’s it for this week- I look forward to talking with you again soon!

Keep Listening:

Next Episode

Episode 7: Carol Ekster, Former Teacher Turned Children’s Author

This week my guest is Carol Ekster, who taught children for 35 years before retiring in 2009 and devoting herself full-time to writing children’s books. She has written around 50(!) books so far, and has 3 books published through traditional publishing, including Ruth the Sleuth and the Messy Room and Where Am I Sleeping Tonight?, a book that tackles the tough topic of divorce.

In this episode, Carol shares her story, along with some of her best tips for marketing yourself as an author. You’ll learn:

How Carol got started writing, and how she was able to get published within a couple of years of starting
Why children’s authors need nerve
How Carol uses social media effectively- including Pinterest!
Why it’s so important to get out into the community to get the word out about your books
How to do Skype classroom visits to share your work with kids
How to find out what agents are looking for from children’s authors
And much more!

Although Carol comes from the traditional publishing world and doesn’t participate in self-publishing like I do, there’s a lot of useful info in this episode on promoting yourself as an author, and how to keep hustling and writing new books! Don’t miss it.

Mentioned in this episode:

Carol’s website, with info about her books and more
2014 Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market book
The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published
Carol on Twitter

Keep Listening:

Subscribe on iTunes – Please leave a review if you enjoy the show! It just takes a second and really helps get the word out.
Check out more episodes
Subscribe to Let’s Make Kids’ Books – Get emailed whenever I release new episodes or blog posts, and get my free “6 Steps to Self-Publishing a Children’s Book” checklist!