Writing and publishing a children's
book is an exciting journey.
Knowing in your heart that you're
going to be touching the lives of
countless little ones and bringing
families closer together in the process.
If you are a first time children's
author or still in the early
stages of your career in the
world of children's literature,
getting the message out about
your new book can be challenging
and even feel overwhelming.
Joining us today to talk more
about one of the amazing ways that
children's authors can find the
dedicated support they need is author
and founder of Think Ahead Kids.
We have Marla humor welcome, Marla.
Hi, it's so nice to be here. Thank you.
Yeah, we're happy to have you on
this show and you have helped
children in the areas of counseling
and psychology for over 20 years.
How did these important
experiences with kids inspire you
to become a children's author?
Yeah, I truly enjoyed working
with those children and seeing
them progress positively.
And, you know, during my small group
and individual counseling sessions I
would use books and arts and crafts
and games to help open up that.
Help them open up and have a
conversation with me.
I really feel that books and
arts and craft activities are
exceptional therapeutic tools.
I agree and tell us about your new
children's book and what you hope
children gain from reading it.
Yeah, when I first moved to our new
location while my family and I first moved,
we decided to write a book and that's
called the Big Move and it's based
on our personal experience of moving
and I really feel that it's great
because from personal knowledge
it's difficult on little ones,
older ones, and even adults when
you move and what is so true?
An art book is great to read with
your children and it really helped
them spark up a conversation
about how they feel about moving.
And it will even actually help.
Start spark up a conversation about
a big change in their life too.
I
like that. Like oh, go ahead. OK, sorry.
And then also we have the make your own the
Big Move book too and that is a great book.
I know that children love to write
and illustrate their own book,
so I decided to create something that
was easy to use and the kids have a lot
of fun doing it where they have a little
writing template and illustrations.
And once they're all done with it,
they have a little book.
That they've written and
illustrated their themselves.
It's really, really nice book.
I think that's great.
I remember just growing up and those
children's books that really stick
out and really resonate with you to
where you remember them as an adult.
So the fact that you've created a
book that both parents and children
can relate to and read together,
I think is great,
and as a result of writing your children's
books and getting the word out about them,
you felt a calling to help other
children's authors in the process.
Tell us about. Think ahead, kids.
But you don't think I had kids was
created initially to show our books and
then eventually during when COVID hit
we decided to create a little website
with free activities for families so
when they were out there we wanted
to provide them something fun to do.
And then it grew into supporting
other authors out there because
so many authors have amazing books
that need to be represented as well.
So our mission is to provide authors
with support while providing educational
and engaging and resourceful.
Information to families and we really,
truly love our mission and our
vision actually is to assist other
authors to obtain their dreams.
To be recognized for their hard work.
You know, we all.
We feel that think had kids feels
that each author needs a voice and
an equal opportunity to represent
all their hard work and to get their
message out there to the world.
I think it's great that you're
doing this because in a crowded
marketplace where authors are
vying to get their book notice.
You've created this space.
Why do you believe that it's
important for children authors to
come together to support one another,
especially during the back
to school in holiday seasons?
Oh yeah, that's a good question.
You know, I think for my personal experience,
I noticed that when you help
one author and then something
positive seems to happen for that
author and then also for yourself.
And then once things start happening
then other people get involved.
And then it seems to help grow the
support system and then you see the
helper gets the benefits and also the
beneficiary gets the benefits as well.
And what has been the
feedback from the authors?
I mean you've created this
space for them to kind of work.
Together, what has been
the feedback for that?
Oh, you know what I truly love is when
we post their work on our website.
So what we do is we will take
the author's books and we will
highlight them through puppet shows,
unique puppet show skits
and author spotlight videos.
We will share their work through
social media to schools and family,
social media platforms.
And I love when I see the authors
they will post what we provided
for them on their social media and
they're so excited they say thank you.
Thank you and they get so many.
Responses like congratulations, great work.
So I think they just feel such
so positively recognized and I
think that when you're an author
and you're writing your book,
that's what you want.
Do you want other people to
recognize all your hard work you
want to get your message out there?
And and I have countless of comments
of positive things of the authors
have enjoyed their time with us,
and we also create a little support
group for them and we get to talk with
each other and see how they're doing,
how they're progressing.
It's it's great feedback.
Positive feedback for sure.
Yes, positive feedback for sure.
And what are some words of advice
and encouragement that you'd
like to share for first time?
Authors and those who are newer
to the Kidlit community who wish
to get their message out there?
You know, I think the main the main thing
is don't feel like you have to do it alone.
You know join a writers group
and authors support group.
You can find them on social media sites.
Just type that in and you're going to
find there's a lot of people who are
willing to help you out there and then.
Also our website.
Take a look at our website.
We have our authors on there who are great.
Their little author spotlight
videos highlight and talk.
They talk about how they published
their book, how they created their book.
What inspired them to write?
So I think that in and of itself is a
great support for new authors and that
also think ahead kids is come mid September.
We're going to be creating a publishing
company and that is to further assist
a future self publishing authors
to help them get their message out
there too were excited about that.
It's going to be really fun.
Oh, that sounds great and I think
what you're doing is great Marla.
So For more information,
visit, think ahead kids.com.