The Publishing Performance Show

Rami Jandali - The Art of Children's Storytelling: Writing and Illustrating with Purpose

• Teddy Smith • Episode 67

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Rami Jandali is a children's book author and illustrator who combines his love of storytelling with artistic talent to create engaging books that spread messages of kindness and acceptance. Through his brand "Rami Stories," he has published books including "An Almond All Alone" and "Blueberry Fairy," which blend colorful illustrations with meaningful themes for young readers. As both an author and artist, Rami creates his own illustrations and brings his characters to life through his unique storytelling style.


In this episode:

  • The journey from natural storyteller to children's book author
  • Creating engaging characters and meaningful themes for children
  • The process of writing and illustrating children's books
  • Finding the right length and format for children's stories
  • Combining digital and traditional art techniques
  • Marketing strategies for children's book authors
  • Building personal connections through in-person marketing
  • Development of book series and future projects


Resources mentioned:


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[00:00:00] Teddy Smith: Hi everyone, welcome to the Publishing Performance Show. I'm here with Rami Jandali, who is a children's author and illustrator. So welcome to the show, Rami. 

[00:00:14] Rami Jandali: Thank you, Teddy. Thank you for having me. Excited to be here. 

[00:00:17] Teddy Smith: Thank you. So, so why don't you tell us a little bit about your backgrounds and how you What led you to becoming an author in the first place?

[00:00:24] Rami Jandali: Sure, of course. I would say kind of at the bread and butter of it all is that I'm a storyteller. Ever since I was a little kid, five, six years old, I've always loved to hear stories, listen to stories from family members, from friends, and then, of course, in turn, tell stories. And, you know, eventually my friends, Got to know.

[00:00:40] Rami Jandali: My stories has Rami stories and Rami stories were basically vivid recounts of it could be just the simplest trip to the grocery store or something that really was exciting that happened. And I love to just paint the picture to make someone feel like they were there with me. So it all kind of started when I.

[00:00:56] Rami Jandali: Developed that interest and love of telling stories and my mom actually was the first Proponent of me to go into writing and she said, you know, you love to write you write really well You kind of write the way that you would tell a story. So why not trying to write stories for kids? Maybe short stories.

[00:01:12] Rami Jandali: So in middle school, I would say it was my first real attempt at writing a fictional story about you know, a fictional land that I just came up with using my imagination and And then I always loved to draw as well, so I would draw the illustrations. My mom's an artist, so coincidentally, she would help me with bringing the color to life using watercolors or whatever medium she had at the time.

[00:01:35] Rami Jandali: And fast forward so many years later, even though I went into a few different industries, healthcare and communications, I always found myself back to writing. And I felt like writing was that one thing that was the common denominator of it all. So about eight years ago, I decided, okay, let's do this before.

[00:01:53] Rami Jandali: Before my wife and I had kids, I just thought it would be a good chance to just put myself out there. See if an idea could stick. So that's where an almond all alone came. And the inspiration for that was. really quite simple. I, I love food. I love different kinds of foods. And you know, I was happy. I happen to have almonds that morning in a bowl of oatmeal.

[00:02:13] Rami Jandali: And I saw one of the almonds looked a little different than the rest. He was chipped off. And I figured, what if that almond had a voice? What if he was a character? What if that was a real life almond that was different than the rest? And what would he be like? Would he be accepted by the other almonds?

[00:02:28] Rami Jandali: Would he be made fun of? And so that's kind of where my imagination ran wild. And I thought, that's That would be cool if he was in a land called Natopia with all these nuts, all of them looking different. You know how many nuts there are out there, literally and figuratively. And, you know, you just have so many different looks to them, tastes to them, functions, sizes.

[00:02:46] Rami Jandali: So I figured this unique almond could be a really cool protagonist. And really, that's how it all started. and. Put the words down to paper. It had a nice rhythmic feel to it. And I thought, oh, this could be maybe a series or maybe just something that can turn into something. But I really think at the end of it, my favorite part is that there was a theme to it.

[00:03:05] Rami Jandali: And the theme was that I was able to spread messages of joy and kindness and acceptance through these. Simple words that I think really could appeal to just about any age range. I used to say it's kind of like from 4 to 99, you know, you have grandparents that I think would enjoy this just as much as kindergartners and 1st graders because the message really resonates with all human beings, regardless of your walk of life.

[00:03:28] Rami Jandali: And, you know, what it is that you do. So I felt like it. Was incumbent on me to start writing stories that spread good through these nutty characters through these, you know, sweet tales that had, you know, fun things that happened along the way. And then you had some trials and tribulations, but at the end of it, we could all relate to characters like the all.

[00:03:48] Rami Jandali: So that's kind of where it all started. So I'm guessing you've got kids yourself. I do. Yes, I have two little ones. I'm blessed to have two boys, a almost six year old and a two and a half year old. 

[00:04:00] Teddy Smith: Oh, nice. I've got two girls. So, ah, very nice. Yeah. But the reason I asked was because, you know, most people I speak to who have written children's books, it's usually like, that's where the inspirations come from, like having their kids there.

[00:04:13] Teddy Smith: So obviously you've got your inspiration to write about these almonds. Was it your kids that gave you the inspiration to write the book in the first place as a kid's book? Do you think? 

[00:04:22] Rami Jandali: You know, funny enough, my first born wasn't even born at the time. I think it was about a year and a half before he was born.

[00:04:28] Rami Jandali: So it was before my wife and I even went down the route of, you know, let's, let's, you know, go down this journey and let's start, you know, building our family and whatnot, we were still about a year, year and a half away. So I was thinking that that's something in our near future, but really, I've always felt like a kid at heart.

[00:04:43] Rami Jandali: So in a way, I didn't need a kid to feel like a kid, if that makes sense, I kind of felt like that inner child was speaking through, you know, a 35 year old at the time. And, you know, I was just using these words to channel what it is that I felt could come to life. And that's something that I've always felt was important is that all of us, regardless of our age, regardless of our background, we all have an inner child inside of us.

[00:05:08] Rami Jandali: We were all children at one point. You know, if you use that youthful energy, you can really speak to children the way that we were spoken to when we were kids ourselves. 

[00:05:17] Teddy Smith: Yeah. That's really interesting. I'm surprised. Yeah. That's the first person I've heard. That's just got off from recent children's book without having the kids there in the first place.

[00:05:26] Teddy Smith: what was the writing process like? So I'm guessing, so you didn't have kids, so I'm guessing you hadn't even read too many kids books maybe. So how did you research things like how long to make the book, you know, what to include, what not to include that sort of thing. Sure. I, you know, reflected on my background of children's books as a kid when I would read you know, things like the Giving Tree and, you know, Dr.

[00:05:46] Rami Jandali: Seuss books and all of them just seem to have their unique style. There was no particular template that I felt like, okay, I need to follow this process and it needs to go like this, you know, Dr. Seuss, you have your silly rhymes and you have your words that, you know, give tongue twisters and then you have, The giving tree and different other stories that have beautiful messages at the end of them.

[00:06:06] Rami Jandali: I just thought that I needed to put a story that spoke to how I tell stories and that's why I call my brand Ronnie stories because they're stories told by me just like Teddy stories could be stories told by you and anyone else can really brand their own story So I felt like it was important that I told my stories the way that I would Orate a story the way I would share a story with a with a child with a nephew with a niece, you know at the time before I had kids and then once our first born did come around, it became so much more clear that this is something I was meant to do.

[00:06:38] Rami Jandali: I was meant to create children's stories because I felt connected to children. it's kind of that Peter Pan complex where I just felt like I always had. You know, the child like quality of being able to connect with kids and, you know, to this day, I, I connect with kids by I'm a coach. So I coach my almost six year old in a few different sports.

[00:06:58] Rami Jandali: And so, you know, I feel like it's so amazing and inspiring not only to them, but to myself to be able to learn from kids. Kids really provide you valuable lessons, resilience, patience, honesty. And then you instill those learning experiences. and different qualities and it's kind of a reciprocal relationship.

[00:07:16] Rami Jandali: So being able to connect with kids. Is probably one of the bigger joys that I found as a children's book author, but to get back to your question about the process, you know, I feel like my process might be a different than a few other people's. I generally don't brainstorm so much. I don't outline as much as I look into that piece of paper or the computer screen and I say, okay, who's my character and what do I want it to be about?

[00:07:39] Rami Jandali: And I just start writing. I know it sounds kind of simplistic, but I really just start writing and that's my rough draft. It's pouring out those ideas straight onto paper screen. And then tidying them up and tweaking them. And then I realized, you know what? I do like to tell stories and rhymes and that rhythmic pattern.

[00:07:56] Rami Jandali: I feel like it connects with Children. It engages them a little bit more because they look for those words that happen to bounce back and forth and My process really is character driven. I've always liked doing voices and impressions and a voice to me has always been a big part of my upbringing. My brother and I would always try and do different accents and impersonations.

[00:08:16] Rami Jandali: And, you know, we would model after certain characters on TV or video games. So I feel like I breathe life into my characters that I write about in that same way. So I think, what does the almond sound like? What is the walnut who, you know, I. Helps the almond almond along the way. Sound like all of these little things help lend characteristics to the characters that helped tell the story.

[00:08:37] Rami Jandali: So I think through my characters, I can tell a better story. Once I know who my characters are, are there any villains? Are there protagonists? Are there helpers along the way, those kind of supporting actors or actresses, so to speak. And then the theme kind of comes in and I've always felt driven by joy.

[00:08:55] Rami Jandali: Acceptance and kindness. I feel like there's so many things going on around the world that could be solved if we just take a look at each other and say, hey, we may look different. We may talk differently, but we're all human beings at the end of the day. It's not, you know, we're not comparing ourselves to a different species.

[00:09:10] Rami Jandali: We're really all united by that human heart, that humanity. So spreading kindness through these words. I hope yeah. is what kids can really take out of my stories while being entertained at the same time. 

[00:09:20] Teddy Smith: Yeah, of course. So do the books all, do they all have a particular, does each book you've written have a particular theme or a particular message behind what you're trying to tell the child?

[00:09:30] Rami Jandali: Yeah, so far my first two books do speak to a very similar theme. The overarching theme is spreading kindness. The difference between the two tales is that the first one is about accepting others for their differences. The almond is different. That's why he's all alone as the title implies. And the second one, Blueberry Fairy, is actually about a protagonist, the blueberry who's Talented.

[00:09:53] Rami Jandali: She's got everything going for her. She's not like the almond. She's not broken. She's actually admired in so many ways, but she has something that others want. And so that's her challenge that she has to deal with. It's even though she's good, even though she does things in the name of kindness, there are always going to be others out there, naysayers, people that want what you have and to try and I know this might sound a little Intense, but kill them with kindness is kind of what I always feel like my philosophy is.

[00:10:19] Rami Jandali: And so her philosophy in the story is to kill with kindness. It's to say, if you're met with adversity, you overcome that not by necessarily putting the other person down, but also by spreading kindness instead and making them feel like. Maybe they didn't realize that they could have taken that route. so both stories speak to kindness.

[00:10:37] Rami Jandali: The second one just shows you that you could be on top of the world, but you're gonna have someone try and bring you down. But if you go down to that level, then it takes away from really the core of who you were in the first place. So you want to always rise up to that adversity by still staying true to yourself.

[00:10:53] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Okay. Interesting. I like that you've got a different theme for each one. when you were, when you were writing the book, did you do any research into things like keywords or anything to try and understand what the target market would be? 

[00:11:05] Rami Jandali: Yeah. You know, I actually went back to all the books.

[00:11:08] Rami Jandali: So speaking of my first born, I went back to his library and I started reading a lot of the books that we had read together in a different way than we would read it when it was bedtime. You know, I would read it a little bit more analytically and understand. Kind of what the undertones were. So rather than just looking at keywords, I was looking at how themes were placed throughout many of the successful children's books over the years outside of just Dr.

[00:11:31] Rami Jandali: Seuss. You know, you have so many different books that even these days in the last 10 to 20 years have been wildly popular. there's one called the little blue truck, and I really liked that one. It's so simple and it really speaks to. all of the different animals that help this blue truck that happens to live a farm life, you know, get to where it is that he wants to get to.

[00:11:50] Rami Jandali: And it's a really, really cute series, you know, whether it's school time or springtime or Halloween, it just speaks to different occasions. And, you know, that book really struck me as a simple way to get that message across of, you can always be a helping hand. And that's what the little blue truck is. He finds himself in situations to always help out.

[00:12:07] Rami Jandali: He's little, he's Kind of a old rusty truck. You know, you don't really see much when you see him on the outside, but deep down inside, the reason why all the animals, the farm animals gravitate towards them is because of who he is on the inside and that's really the key word, so to speak, is how to find that theme of showing that what's on the inside matters most.

[00:12:27] Rami Jandali: And that's what blueberry theory really embodies. It's doesn't matter what you look like. It doesn't matter what your front cover of the book looks like. It's the substance that's behind it. That really matters. 

[00:12:38] Teddy Smith: Nice. That is a lovely little tale. Now, when you were doing the when you were writing the book, did you, have a plan to decide how many pages you're going to have and how the illustration is going to work before you started?

[00:12:51] Teddy Smith: Because I know a lot of people may it. be if they haven't written a book before a children's book and they want to know what the best lengths for it. 

[00:12:58] Rami Jandali: Yeah, absolutely. I think the length was one thing I definitely needed to research because I, I feel like sometimes my stories can really go on and on. I could write 50 pages for a children's book and maybe it only needs 20 or 25.

[00:13:10] Rami Jandali: So I found that there was that sweet spot of 20 to 30, you know, some people might say 24 to 32, but really in that like mid to high 20s. And so an almond all alone is about 28 pages. And blueberry fairy is 24 pages. So within a few pages of each other and what I would do is my 1st draft would usually generally as most drafts do go longer.

[00:13:31] Rami Jandali: So it would be in the 30s or the 40s. I cut him down. I find ways to maybe combine 2 pages together so that they didn't need that much to talk about maybe the same scene or the same. Situation that was going on. So yeah, I think researching children's books and their length and also knowing the audience, I think that was a big part of my research process is knowing, am I writing for two year olds or am I writing for six plus?

[00:13:54] Rami Jandali: And when I realized I'm writing to a big age range, I really would say I write for three to ten. And I know that's a huge range at that developmental stage. But when I say three to ten, it's because three to five, they can connect with the colors of the, you know, illustrations and with the rhymes. And then the six to ten can connect to the characters and the themes behind it all.

[00:14:15] Rami Jandali: So I do think it's important to understand who your audience is as a first time writer or even. A multi time writer, someone to just know, like, am I, am I speaking to adults here? Am I speaking to really, really little kids with those board books that, you know, have more ABC quality writing? Or are we talking about something?

[00:14:32] Rami Jandali: Cause my, the words in my book, sometimes puzzle a five year old or a six year old. So my, my own six year old will stop me and be like dad, what does that word mean? Or what does this word mean? And that's kind of the point of these books too. It's to stimulate side conversations so that they're like, oh, what is that?

[00:14:48] Rami Jandali: It's a synonym of this word that you know, you know, which means nice or which means kind. And even with my two and a half year old, I find as he's developing language. He's pointing at certain pages or certain words which are stimulating his interest. So I think finding the right audience for your books is key.

[00:15:04] Rami Jandali: And then finding that sweet spot of the number of pages. So for me, it's in that mid 20s of pages and I keep it to about four lines a page. so it has like a nice rhythmic cadence, four lines. You could probably finish each page in about 15 to 20 seconds type of style. 

[00:15:20] Teddy Smith: Yeah, nice. Now, inside your book, there's you've got lots of illustrations, of course, because it's a children's book, but did you do the illustrations yourself?

[00:15:29] Rami Jandali: I did, yes. an almond all alone, I did all the illustrations, and then my mom, who I'd referenced to earlier, being a watercolor painter, she helped bring the color of an almond all alone to life, so I'm more of a drawer, a sketcher. I like drawing the characters, the outlines of things. And then when I started to color, I thought, okay, wait a second.

[00:15:48] Rami Jandali: Let me, let me see if I can quote unquote hire my mom who would be able to infuse some color. So she helped me with an almond all alone on the color side for blueberry fairy. I took it upon myself to do the whole thing, start to finish myself. I started to train on how to do digital art because most of the art I've always done was.

[00:16:05] Rami Jandali: But I got an iPad. I had gotten an iPad recently and I said, okay, let's download one of those you know, create software, digital art software. And I started using one of them. And I. Really self learned and it was really a magical process because you could do so much digitally that you can't really do artistically on paper.

[00:16:24] Rami Jandali: Just the way that you get the color gradients and the way that you can bring certain pops of color to life. So yeah, I'm, I'm proud to say that Blueberry Fairy was, was me start to finish. 

[00:16:34] Teddy Smith: So how did you plan those pictures? Because the pictures you've got are really nice. So is there, did you ever plan beforehand, to what image would go on each page?

[00:16:42] Rami Jandali: Yes, absolutely. So once I finish writing, the way I usually do it is that once I feel comfortable with a draft, I then go back page by page and I draw up a scene in my mind and I say, you know, my imagination is very colorful. So I look at it in terms of what comes to mind when I first read those few lines or those few words.

[00:17:00] Rami Jandali: And really, whatever comes to mind, I'll jot that down next to the page and I'll say, okay, this one's got to have bright colors. This one's got to be at night. This one's got to be a little foreboding and dark because we're talking about the raisin who in this story is, you know, the bad guy. So to speak, you know, he's the one that's trying to take what the blueberry fairy has.

[00:17:18] Rami Jandali: So his colors are not going to be as vibrant and rich. They're going to be a little bit Gloomier. And once things turn around, the color scheme changes to reflect that joy that's, you know, emanating as a result of him coming around to what he ends up coming around to. So, the colors in my mind match the mood of the pages and who the characters are, and then the scenes match where along the story they are.

[00:17:40] Rami Jandali: So, I try and follow the plot and say, okay, here's where the tension's building. I need a lot of focus on the characters rather than the scenes. scene. But in the beginning, I focus more on scene work because you're looking at kind of the overview of where this fantastical land is. And at the very end, I kind of come in like a bell curve.

[00:17:57] Rami Jandali: The trajectory goes back to an environmental background rather than the character based background because the words will speak for themselves at that point. But really, it's just going page by page and saying, what mood do I want to reflect on each scene? 

[00:18:10] Teddy Smith: Yeah, right. Okay. So do you, cause I've written on what, when I wrote my children's book, I basically did it in a kind of, I made a PowerPoint for the, for what was actually going to be on each page and kind of just wrote down what the images would be before I started drawing.

[00:18:24] Teddy Smith: And it kind of helped me to map out the story and where the words would go and things like that. Very nice. Yeah, 

[00:18:29] Rami Jandali: no, that, that makes sense too, because you're looking at it kind of scene to scene or page to page. 

[00:18:33] Teddy Smith: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Cause I, I wanted my pictures to kind of overflow the text a little bit.

[00:18:38] Teddy Smith: Cause I had a draft in it. And so his neck would go across multiple pages. 

[00:18:44] Rami Jandali: Love it. And then one other thing stylistically that I consider just to maybe give another option to authors is some authors or illustrators like to leave a lot of white space on their paper. And I feel like you can go really right with that, depending on what you're trying to achieve.

[00:18:59] Rami Jandali: Are you trying to achieve more of the pop of the words or the pop of the color on the, in the scenes? And I went with the whole full color page and then the words are kind of embedded within, but I've seen Julia Donaldson is an author that I really like. And she's done the Gruffalo and room on the broom and snail on the whale and lots of other cool books.

[00:19:17] Rami Jandali: And she tends to leave some white space. Because she has like a focal point on whatever the scene is or the attention is of that particular part of the story. And then the words are somewhat above it or below it. So I think anyone's style can work when it comes to children's books. That's kind of the beauty of children's books.

[00:19:34] Rami Jandali: You pick your style and if you don't want to stick with it, that's cool too. But I feel like once you have a style, you'll be known for your style. 

[00:19:41] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely. Now, you've obviously made, some sales in your book and you've had a sort of some level of success with it. So how, what, what marketing did you do in order to get your book out there?

[00:19:50] Teddy Smith: And also, did you have any particular processes you followed for the book launches to get them, you know, successful on wherever you were selling them? 

[00:19:58] Rami Jandali: For sure. I think it starts from within and that's your launch team. I like to call it. My launch team is super tiny. It's, it's an intimate group of family members that I feel like either are somewhat active on social media or have some, Decent networks and each one of them has their own respective network of friends.

[00:20:14] Rami Jandali: It could be co workers or colleagues, depending on their line of work. It could just be, friends that no people that might have kids or work for schools, et cetera. So I feel like starting with your intimate team, so to speak of, for me, it's five to 10 people. Others might be a lot larger than that is a really cool starting point because that gives you the chance to propel the word from people that you trust.

[00:20:37] Rami Jandali: You're not just. Going to social social media influencers and, you know, writing up this whole proposal on, you know, will you please, you know, talk about my book to your followers when they don't know who you are? And I think a big part of the writing process is who the author is when you connect as an author.

[00:20:54] Rami Jandali: It goes beyond just the words. You're a real person. You know, I read these Dr Seuss books, but I don't know who Dr Seuss is. I've seen his picture a few times. But, you know, if Dr Seuss was here today, I would love to. Pick his brain about this and that. And I feel like that's the beauty of the world that we live in today.

[00:21:08] Rami Jandali: It's that you can make those bookstore visits and school visits. And to me, social media is a great starting point, but it's certainly not the end all. it's not as effective for me and my experience as the in person marketing and the in person marketing is really putting yourself out there as a brand.

[00:21:25] Rami Jandali: As a person humanizing yourself and you know, the most successful, I would say that I've been is when I get to connect with parents and kids. It doesn't have to be in a school format. It could be. I love doing readings to kids and connecting with them because they have lots of questions and their questions are intriguing and they want to know how do you become an author?

[00:21:44] Rami Jandali: And what is like writing for a living? And you know, how much time do you spend and how do you get your ideas and all of that? And it's really cool to try and yeah. Maybe find a little bit of a spark in each of them to remind them that they're all writers. But for me, I would say most of my success has been word of mouth in person, connecting with people you know, through sport teams that I coached through schools that we've been a part of through our kids or my alma maters and just networking from there.

[00:22:11] Teddy Smith: So it's quite a manual process for you. You haven't tried to do much online marketing. It's been mostly trying to get word of mouth and try and get that out there. 

[00:22:18] Rami Jandali: Correct. I have used Amazon ads. I have used, you know, social media campaigns. I actually on the side do communications and marketing for healthcare organizations.

[00:22:28] Rami Jandali: So I do have a lot of the tools and strategies on how to make a digital marketing campaign. And I do feel like that can be very, very effective. But because of the line of work that I'm in, I think the in person is such an important way to bolster that. It's to make you known as your Rami, the author or not.

[00:22:45] Rami Jandali: Oh, you have these stories that come out once every, you know, couple of years, so to speak. So it's like, Oh, I like who he is as a person, therefore I want to know what his next book is. So that's what I'm trying to achieve with my marketing process. It's kind of a boots on the ground and then letting the social media and the ads and everything kind of go from there.

[00:23:04] Teddy Smith: Nice. So one thing that I think is quite difficult with children's books is you talked mentioned just then you did some Amazon advertising, like finding those keywords can be a bit difficult because obviously people don't necessarily search for almonds, children's book, you know, it's like it's what's that keyword might not be there.

[00:23:20] Teddy Smith: So what was your approach for finding keywords? 

[00:23:24] Rami Jandali: Keywords to me resonated when they linked to your theme, because I felt like when you searched for books about kindness or books about, you know, you name it, acceptance, for example, you started to find a litany of books that had very, very analogous themes, and those themes made so many different styles come together again, books from the 60s to books from only a few years ago, all kind of amalgamated in one reservoir of books about Kindness and that to me was better than Nutty Tales or almonds or blueberries because really people are not going to think of those topics until they see your book, but they're going to think about I want a positive book for my child or I want to teach them a lesson about being strong.

[00:24:05] Rami Jandali: And there's a big anti bullying message within an almond all alone and You know, talking about how making fun of others is not right. And, you know, teaching kids kind of like, it's never too young to know that you need to treat others with kindness and respect. And if you see someone that's down, you help lift them up and all of those things.

[00:24:22] Rami Jandali: So those are the key word. That's where the keywords generated from. It's what do my books? Some sum up to when you really boil it down to, like, what is your book about and if you can put a phrase to it or a sentence to it, and then dissecting those words, it's about kindness. It's about resilience. It's about anti bullying.

[00:24:39] Rami Jandali: It's about spreading those messages because, like you said, books can be just about anything. They could be about bruffaloes. And how would you go to search for a gruffalo? If you didn't know what a gruffalo was? 

[00:24:48] Teddy Smith: This can be when a, this can be a good opportunity to use a tool like Publishing Informants, like, because that's where you can get those keywords and it can run those experiments in real time.

[00:24:57] Teddy Smith: And I think it might be worth you checking it out because I think it could work really nicely for your books. Definitely. Yeah. So what's your plans for the future? Have you got any new books coming out that you're working on? 

[00:25:08] Rami Jandali: Yes, I do. Spoiler alert, I'm in the middle of the Second installment of blueberry fairy.

[00:25:13] Rami Jandali: So blueberry fairy, I felt like there was enough to that story to turn it into a series. So I'm hoping that it can turn into a three part series right now. I'm fixated on part to trying to get that story fully fleshed out and developed, but I'm in the middle of that. Hopefully in a few months. That's my goal.

[00:25:29] Rami Jandali: You know, being a dad of two being a husband and, you know, full time worker time does get a little bit. Yeah. You know, tight. So it's, it's sometimes you say it's going to take a month and it takes four months, but the hope is that, you know, if not by the end of this year, 2024 early next year, that I would be, releasing the second installment.

[00:25:47] Teddy Smith: Great. Well, I'm really for seeing it. I love, I love the first few months. Yeah. Now, if people want to get in contact with you, where's the best place to do that? Is it social media or? 

[00:25:57] Rami Jandali: Yeah, social media or my website. My website is Ronnie. Stories dot com. And that's R. A. M. I. Stories dot com. And then social media.

[00:26:07] Rami Jandali: It's the same. Rami stories is my handle. I'm most active on instagram and also on amazon. I have an author page, author central. You can search for my full name, Rami Jandali and you can search for my books as well. So either one of those ways works. 

[00:26:23] Teddy Smith: Great brilliant. Well, thanks so much for coming on just last question.

[00:26:27] Teddy Smith: Just before we go is what's the book you recommend? Everyone should be reading, 

[00:26:32] Rami Jandali: you know, I've always loved the alchemist by Paulo Coelho And I feel like it's one of those books that when I first read it I was in my mid teens and to this day. I want to pick it up and read it talk about themes It's one of the themes that's really resonated strongest With me.

[00:26:48] Rami Jandali: So to all the listeners out there, whether you've read it or never read it before, please pick up the off at the optimist. I mean, Paolo Coelho. 

[00:26:56] Teddy Smith: Great. Well, thank you very much. That recommendation. It's been great chatting to you. I'm really for seeing what happens to the next few books. Thanks, Eddie. I appreciate it.

[00:27:03] Teddy Smith: And some great tips there on how people can get started writing their own children's book. looking forward to seeing a new book come out. So thanks for coming on. We'll speak soon. 

[00:27:11] Rami Jandali: I appreciate you having me, Teddy. Thank you. 

[00:27:13] Teddy Smith: Thank you so much for tuning into the Publishing Performance Podcast. I really hope you found today's episode inspiring.

[00:27:19] Teddy Smith: I love chatting to authors, writers, and people in the publishing world. 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.

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