Beestie Besties with J & Lo
Beestie Besties with J & Lo is a monthly menagerie of updates, author interviews, visits with our pals, inspiring tales of best friends taking big leaps, and more; a delightful blend of nonsense and nonfiction. Jess Neiding (J) is the CFO and chief editor and nonsense maker of Wildebeest Publishing Company, while Laura Thorne (Lo) is the CEO and nonfiction queen — together they make an unstoppable pair who giggle and cry their way through any of life and business’s challenges, as any besties should. Tune in for the latest in self and indie-publishing, fun chats and excerpts from books published in the Wildebeest Publishing HERD, educational snippets from our industry expert friends, and other random visits from everyone from our mothers to other Beestie Besties.
Beestie Besties with J & Lo
E8 - Family Secrets, Finding Your People, & What it Takes to Keep Promoting Your Book after Publication
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What does it really take to keep promoting your book after publication?
In Episode 8 of Beestie Besties with J & Lo, J and Lo welcome two author friends who are showing up, learning as they go, and doing the work of building real momentum around their books: Roxanne Bocyck, author of Catherine’s Dream, and Kaitlyn Marquart, author of IDK What to Say, Amber Luna, My Bright Light, and Mari’s Light, Burning Bright.
Roxanne shares the family secret and Polish immigration history that inspired Catherine’s Dream, how research helped her shape the story, and what she learned through the publishing process. She also talks about author events, book tables, giveaways, and how writers can make their setup more inviting when they are promoting in person.
Kaitlyn shares how a simple idea became IDK What to Say, what collaboration with Wildebeest Publishing Co. helped her discover about her writing process, and how she later taught herself to self-publish. She also talks about Amber Luna, My Bright Light, Mari’s Light Burning Bright, friendship, mental health, healing, and why asking for help is part of doing hard things.
Also in this episode: gratitude, accountability buddies, author mindset, social media, book promotion, the August 22 author workshop at CNY Arts Center, the CNY Arts Center book club, the Brooklyn Book Festival, and the value of carving out consistent creative time before the day gets away from you.
Mentioned in this episode:
- Catherine’s Dream by Roxanne Bocyck
- IDK What to Say by Kaitlyn Marquart
- Amber Luna, My Bright Light by Kaitlyn Marquart
- Mari’s Light Burning Bright by Kaitlyn Marquart
- CNY Arts Center author workshop on August 22
- CNY Arts Center book club
- Brooklyn Book Festival on September 27
- Wildebeest Publishing Co.’s 90-Day Non-Fiction Writing Journal
Have a Beestie Besties story? If you and a best friend, sibling, spouse, creative partner, or business partner have built something, survived something, created something, or taken a big leap together, J and Lo would love to hear about it. Visit Wildebeest Publishing Company online and submit your story for a future segment.
Be yourself, run wild, take leaps, high five your homies, and pen your pages.
Welcome to BC Besties with Jay and Lo, the podcast where we share publishing updates, laps, and all the new news in our world. Today we have two amazing authors joining us for our Friends Are Here segment. They are both tenacious in their book promotion, like seriously hardcore pushing their books, and they've both won awards and they are going to share some tips with you and more about how their publishing journeys were. So stay with us till that point. And we will kick off with What We're Grateful For.
SPEAKER_03Um, you know, I really like that you've instituted this practice. I'm sure I've mentioned that before, but it's so easy to get stuck in your little like poopy pants hole or anything like that. And so when you just take a second and you stop and look and go, there's some pretty cool stuff going on. Do you have anything that you're grateful for these days, my friend?
SPEAKER_02Of course. This practice is very important to me because it's it is very easy to get caught in a grumpy pants mode all the time. And and really, I personally don't believe that there are a whole lot of things in life that need to be taken real seriously. Some th there are a few things, very few things that should be family, life, health, that kind of stuff. But everything that we encounter as far as business and um most other things, tech working, not working, a lot of it is just like, is this really this serious? So to be grateful for the things that you have in front of you, plus you know, even how I'm always comparing to history just the amount of stuff that we have and compared to, you know, we talk to um our guests about their books and history and just uh compared to what people had even 50 to 100 years ago. We are so lucky for things that we have. So I am super grateful today though, specifically for because you know they can change depending on what's happening. But I'm very grateful for Upwork. Maybe uh some people don't even know what that is, but it is a platform form where you can hire people to do work for you. And I'm not grateful for it for that reason. I am grateful for the people, the women especially that I've met through that who I've worked with, and I'm getting to work with some people from around the world and just really have some really interesting interactions with people around the world through the work that I do. So I love that. And then of course I am grateful for New York City Transit. It gets a bad rap, but the ability to sit on a train for an hour to go somewhere without having to pay attention to traffic, you know, coming from Tampa where the traffic is so awful and knowing how degrading it is to your mental, and being able to sit on a train and listen to music or answer some emails or do something is to me night and day difference. Like I don't get where I'm going. And of course, you know, depending on what your outlook is and how you travel by train, you might be annoyed by other people or some you occasionally see some weird things. But I really appreciate the transit system here, and compared to some other places, I think it works great. So I'm I'm really appreciative of that. And then my last one is little white dogs.
SPEAKER_03I need to know more about this because you're like a staunch cat person, so I'm I'm yes very curious.
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, I'm I'm still if I have to choose which is gonna reside in my home, I'm gonna choose a cat. But just going for walks and stuff, there's every time I see a little white dog, they have to be the most grateful little scrappers in the world.
SPEAKER_01They're so precious.
SPEAKER_02They're always just like prancing, and they always just look like they are in love with their owners. They're just like they look like they live in La La Land. And I don't care what breed it is, just little white dogs are the happiest little things I've ever seen. And every time I see one now, they just kind of like bounce that back onto me.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, you should come over for a little while because I have a gigantic brown and black dog that also does the same thing, and she's really been ramping it up lately too, because I think she knows I'm going on vacation. So yeah, animals are the best. I mean, and I just learned the other day that there's a six-foot giant river otter. Did you know that there were river otters that large? No. Okay, we'll have to talk more about that later, but it's they're terrifying, they're not cute like the other ones. Interesting.
SPEAKER_02No, I've never heard of that. What are you grateful for?
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean, speaking of dogs, um, I love my roommate, Dottie. She's awesome. I mean, we're having so much fun together, and I was having a conversation with one of my other besties the other day, and we were talking about roommates and how we've had some terrible ones. And, you know, we were talking about who was like our best roommate ever. And I was like, I think Dottie's my favorite, you know, because she gets me up, she gets me moving. She then we kind of do our own thing a little bit of the time. But if I had to pick a human, Chris Hartrip, I mean, living with him was such a dream. And like when you look back and you think, oh, I come home from college and I have the guy who's now like one of the top chefs in the Tampa area making me meals, trying out food recipes. That was awesome. So I was just kind of looking like happily back at some of the people I've lived- not so happily back at some of them, but you know, just kind of reminiscing a little bit. I'm going, my birthday's coming up on a few days here, but by the time this air is it'll have been passed and I'll be back. But I'm going to Paris and Bruges, so I'm really excited about that. Those are two cities I didn't really have on my list until later in life. And once again, you know I've got to talk about video games because I'm st I'm playing the sequel to that game I was talking about with the really interesting AI story in it, and how AI, you know, they build the Gaia thing to kind of save the world. And I it's like I attack the the storytelling in these games is so fantastic now that it's like when you're reading a book you love and you're just like, okay, when I get to this campfire, I'm gonna pause and save the game and turn it off. But you're just like, no, I just gotta read one more chapter. I just gotta read one more chapter. You know, night night nighting here stayed up until like 12:30 the other night gaming, which you know, 9 30 is my pretty hard past bedtime. So, you know, I was just looking at it and thinking about it, and it's like it's these stories that keep us locked in, right? You think about like binging a show on Netflix or just like tearing through a book. I remember I called in sick to work one day to read Ruddy Player One, or like these games, because you know, it's the stories, and that's you know, it's not just mindless running around and grinding on uh you know, whatever. It's like they build this whole world in it, and it's all it's just captivating. So yeah, I'm been having a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_02Nice. Yeah, just uh I like the storytelling element. I don't have the the patience, I don't or attention span. The game for me is business. The game, like the game I play day after day, so I've been up till midnight or later, sometimes later, just coding again. And it is that's my happy spot.
SPEAKER_03I I mean I wish I knew how to do it. I it's such a different language to me, and you talk about these things that you're doing, and I'm just like, I don't know what that means, but you're super passionate about it, and it sounds awesome. And then when you show me these things you've created, I'm like, this is so cool, and I can't even begin to wrap my head around how you did it. You know, I mean, and it's it's awesome, it is awesome. It's awesome.
SPEAKER_02And that's you know, I can imagine being like a video game coder creator, that'd be amazing.
SPEAKER_03All the listeners out there, that would like, if I could go back in time, I'd want to write these stories, right? And you think about movies like Grandma's Boy, where there were testers. I'm like, if anybody needs a tester in the 49-year-old woman market, holla at your girl, you know, like yeah, it's just all those little behind the scenes things, even it's like even just getting a glimpse into your world with this coding is fascinating because we like to know how the sausage is made. Sometimes not the liter literal sausage.
SPEAKER_02I don't want to all right, so intentions. I think we have this intentions thing going where we make sure that we are checking in on each other. Are we working on the habits that we would like to work on? And we're probably due for a new set, I think. But does anything come into mind as an intention we should focus on for this week?
SPEAKER_03You know, it was excuse me. It was really funny because I think we kind of unintentionally like tripped back into this with some of the stuff we've been doing lately, because there's just been a fire, a different fire lit in both of us lately. And, you know, I can say personally for me, like coming off the tail end of a lot of we'll say big life events and some serious health issues that I haven't really felt on track and probably should have been checking in on the intentions a lot more than I had, but you know, I kind of stumbled my way through a lot of it, and then the other day I was like, Laura's doing a lot of stuff, I'm doing a lot of stuff, we're really making a lot of projects projects and progress. I said, when I get back from this trip, let's be accountability buddies and really kind of check in on these things that we're jazzed on and just make sure we keep moving. It's just fun saying, like, hey, cool, what'd you get done today? Oh, where are you at? Oh yeah, cool, cool, cool. We got that done. It feels so good. So yes. It's it's nice to feel this again.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and you know, that's the thing about so the intentions, like I would love for more best friends to work off intentions together. Yeah, just period. You know, and and if you're just listening or whatever, it's basically a list of habits you want to work on and you've worked, you've talked through them together. Like, what are you they don't necessarily have to be things you're both struggling with, but like if it's money stress or if it's uh complaining too much, or if it is, you know, dwelling on something in the past, like whatever it is that you're like, I need to get in the habit of getting rid of this. So it basically gives the other person permission to call you out. So you're like, hey, are we working on that intention? And without that, you're just telling somebody what to do, you know, or you're just you may hurt their feelings with like how dare you, even though they might know deep down that they should be working on it. But it gives gives each other permission to to just stop each other to take a evaluation of how you're doing things. I mean, the big ones for us are the four agreements, not taking things personally and not making assumptions. And then so even when when you're talking or when I'm talking, you can say, Hey, I think the reason you're having that problem is you've been making assumptions. And then we tie it back the intentions. So um and and with that though, there are times when one of us maybe doesn't feel like doing them. And you have to be like, Can we do that again? Can we do it again? Let's pull it back, let's do it again.
SPEAKER_03I mean, and you and I have such an intimate relationship after 30 however many years of friendship that we've had here, that like we can be more like sisters a lot of times, you know, and it's like there'll be things that we notice in each other that we point out, and it, you know, it keeps you honest, it keeps you on track. And you know, and speaking with one of my other lifelong friends that I love dearly, and it's like, you know, she's going through it right now, and I'm just a little bit on the other side of where she was, you know, with things like this. And she's like, You're so wise. I'm like, Oh, I am not wise. I have I have, you know, true knowledge is like all we are is dust in the wind, dude.
SPEAKER_02But like it's like the video games, you're just another level up, but the levels never stop.
SPEAKER_03Like, yeah, I'm just taking a different kind of lesson.
SPEAKER_02With you over the last I'm like, can we go back? I would love to do attentions, but like I'm waiting for you to get to the point where you can do it again. So I'm super excited to after your trip to like get back on these things. But yeah, and you know, there are times and seasons for everything.
SPEAKER_03Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_02So anyway, let's get to our news so that we can get to our so when our friends are here, we're ready for them.
SPEAKER_03Speaking of news, okay, real quick sidebar side quest, whatever you want to call it. I had some little children over the other day to play old school video, old school, like PlayStation 4 VR set and like the old me balance board.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03I'm sorry, I shot the paint on the chicken. But they were over and you know, they wanted to go out and play PlayStation 5. I'm like, you guys are playing this old stuff, which, you know, shot myself in the foot on that trying to get it working. I've been talking about this game. I'm like, oh yeah, it's really fun. You sit on the balance board and you drive this yak down a mountain, and ha ha ha ha. It comes up today. What's it called? Ste B-E-E-S-T-I-E boarding. So it is not a yak, it is a wildebeest that you are riding upside down and it is unhinged. And I laughed so hard. I was just like, beastie boarding. Like, who'd have dunk it? Like but yeah. Anyway, so back to other news, G-N-U-S.
SPEAKER_02Yes, news. Give us the news.
SPEAKER_03So we have lots of big things going on. As you may have heard, um we have pivoted the weekend retreat to a workshop now. So it is I believe it's filling up pretty quickly, right? And it's gonna be at the CNY Art Center. You know a little bit more about that area than I do, so if you wouldn't mind speaking to the center, that would be great.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, the workshop is registration's open, it's on the website. There's uh vendor opportunities, and like Roxanne will describe when she gets here, there will be a contest for vendors. So we want to help authors to improve their branding and their appearance, and also give people an incentive to come by the tables and say hello. And it will be at the CNY Arts Center in Fulton, New York, which is about 35-40 minutes north of Syracuse, but it is a gorgeous drive and it is a beautiful little town, and there we have the ability to do this outside, so hopefully it won't be too hot or raining, but uh we're gonna cross our fingers for a beautiful day. But there's gonna be room for 40 vendors, and it's early on, so we're we're inviting all of our partners. But we have Georgia Popov, who is the amazingly accomplished writer and uh a member of the American Pen Women Society Association. I am not sure which it is and she is also uh longstanding. She was, I think she's retired, but she was with this the Central New York Writers Committee, which is uh part of the YMCA. And so she's gonna be talking about getting through your imposter syndrome. You know, once you're an author, it's not like you just start selling your books. That every author faces this like, who am I to push this? Who am I to sell this? You're you have to become a business owner entrepreneur, and that's a very big mindset mindset shift. So she's talking about that. Dr. Lisa Luisa Caprono is joining us from Texas, and she's the author of Push Them Breathe. And she'll be teaching more of the marketing and branding, and she's just incredible. She's set up book tours across the country, she's constantly marketing and promoting and doing talks, and so she's going to teach more of that business side. Then Aldea Girard is an amazing artist and creative director with Halec Productions. Um, our sister, social media partner. And yes, the other unicorn in my life. And so she's going to teach, take everything further and actually teach you hands-on how to make posts, how to do social media, how to set up your content calendars. So this is extremely valuable. And then finally, our guest who's going to be arriving here soon, Roxanne Boysick, is the author of Catherine's Dream. And she is like her table setup is just incredible, and she's going to be helping us run that contest and presenting more on how to actually get that set up and going for you so that it's effective. And yeah.
SPEAKER_03I mean, Roxanne is just so much fun to be around. She's got stories for days.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03I mean, like, all of these people that are going to be there are fantastic. I think it was uh Dr. Kay is one of the many people that have said to us, like, you know, you wouldn't think writing the book was the easy part, but it's all the marketing and advertising and thing after that, where it's like, you know, like Caitlin speaks about it's like I social media, like I didn't know it would be such a great tool. And it's just finding the tools that work for you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And so, and to that point, you can sign up as a vendor. There's a Saturday workshop which has the four presenters, and then there's a Sunday bonus, which still wrapping up the details, but by the time this comes out, it should be finalized. But we'll be at this great little hotel in Auburn with hands-on help. So it's an additional, like whatever it is that you need help with website, your social media spreadsheets, like setting yourself up for success, like, or just learning the tech. Some of our authors just don't even know how to send an email. So we can help you how to do all of that and how to build your own website, whatever you want. Like, I've got many years of entrepreneur and design and business experience, and then um, some of the others, like Aldea has the social media and graphics and design, and our other tech helpers will be there with for whatever it is that you need. So that will be super valuable. So you can either book them together or just the Saturday. And um, we're also working with CNY Arts Center to sponsor their new book vet book club. So the first one was May 1st, May 21st, and that was with Gomez Adams and Kim Adams, because they're running uh concurrent adults, not adult themed, but four adults book book club and then also children's at the same time so that they can show up together. So, you know, a lot of times you gotta leave the family at home. And I think for some book clubs you want to leave the family at home, especially the the wine and sip ones.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but I think it's so great that they're doing this together because they're just charming and so funny and so fun. And I don't know, I look at it from the outside like that's gotta be a really cool experience. They're both newly published authors and they're getting to kind of like run their book tour, but obviously do it very different directions based on their audience.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so their next one is going to be June 21st. So if you're listening now and you're interested in the book club in the central New York area, that will be June 21st. And they have, I think they're gonna have food. We're sponsoring. So if we don't, if we don't provide the author in the books, we're we're sponsoring the food. So there will be snacks. Everybody loves snacks, and so it'll be just a fun time. It's a great little center there.
SPEAKER_03There's a uh snack expo happening at the Denver airport that I looked to see if we could be fit in there, but it's we're not needing to get our items in the Denver airport. But it's like, ooh, snack and business item info. Yeah, I mean, and um Gomez's book, Glenn Gomez Adams. His book is your caller number seven, please try again, which is hilarious stories from his decades in radio. I'm I know I've mentioned it before, it's charming and wonderful. His wife, Kim Adams' book, is um about empathy and camping and things with the children up in the Adirondack, so kids can learn a little bit about compassion and yes, and we would like to welcome our newest author, Dr.
SPEAKER_02Sharissa Braxton. And we're just getting started with her and excited for that to be coming out in the coming months. Uh we will also be at Brooklyn Book Festival this year, September 27th. So mark your calendars and come up for that.
unknownI know.
SPEAKER_02Then we have the our community, at least, author and our community. This month's challenge is something to do with nature. So if you'd like more of those details, join us inside the community. Why are you laughing?
SPEAKER_03When Florida Cat came out to visit me, another one of my besties, there's an old skit on SNL where Will Farrell plays Robert Gouet, and he just says nature. So when I just say nature. It's it's ridiculous. I highly recommend anybody going and watching it on the YouTubes. It's super funny. So I just can't not hear it and giggle.
SPEAKER_02But anyway, it'll be a nature challenge and uh or a nature challenge. Nature. You can join us inside the community for the full details. But awesome.
SPEAKER_03I think our friends are here. Ding dong, let's do it.
SPEAKER_02So we have Roxanne and Caitlin with us, but we're gonna start with some questions to Roxanne here. So, Roxanne, of course, the first thing we would like to know is for you to tell us a little bit about your book.
SPEAKER_00Well, my book, my first book, doesn't it feel great to say that? My first book is based on a true story about my grandmother who came from Poland in 1921. So that's my novel that I'm writing. That I wrote, wrote. There you go. Jesus. But uh, I learned about this book because this family secret came out. You know those family secrets that stay buried, buried? Well, come to find out, my mother's oldest sister had a different father. And we're all like, wait, what? So, meaning her nine kids grew up thinking my grandfather was their grandfather. So, just this shows you how long the secret was buried. Wow.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00And we always knew that my grandmother came from Poland and the steerage of the ship, but what I didn't know is she originally came under an arranged marriage and ends up in the Adirondacks in a paper mill town up near Canton in Potsdam.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And what I learned, what happened to her, I was like, oh my gosh, I gotta write this story one day. You know how we get those stories in us. And I did.
SPEAKER_02I did. Well, tell us about your publishing experience. You did not publish with us, so we'll just uh tell our audience that we love Roxana's part of our herd. In our community, uh, yeah, so we're welcome you here into our friend circle.
SPEAKER_00Well, because that's the thing. You've got when you become an author or you want to be a writer, you've got to hang out with writers and authors, right? Precisely. And so that's how I met both of you at an event where there were writers and authors and artesians, and it was Jessica's uh fire festival, just like that. Yes. The fire festival, one of the first ones I went to. Yes. But anyhow, as for publishing, I knew that when I was publishing this book that I didn't just want to like self-publish it and you know, on my own, I mean, you know, because a lot of people do that, right? And that's okay. I'm talking about try and learn about Amazon and all that on their own. So I started querying my book. First, I hired a writing coach because I'd never written a novel before. And uh, after I was done with the final product, after much editing and beta readers, all that good stuff, um, I started querying it, but at the same time I learned that agents and acquisitions editors hung out on Twitter at the time. So this was like the 2022 kind of time period. So I started going on there and interacting with people. Well, I happened to see a post by an acquisitions editor who said, The average novel is 100,000 words. And I go, Well, mine's historical fiction and it's a little longer than that. Isn't that acceptable? And he said, Send it to me. And I'm just like, okay. You know what I mean? Like, all right. So I did, and to make a long story short, he worked for Morgan James Publishing, and uh I had to apply and all of that and still do all that paperwork, but uh they accepted my book and I was excited. And Morgan James is like a hybrid publisher, so it's not one of the big fives, but uh they did a good job on my book, and I'm very happy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we had a great time speaking with them too. They were very friendly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, David Hancock is, he's very down to earth and yeah, very good. Jesse one feels Question.
SPEAKER_03Well, you know, it's just it's it's so much fun because hearing me talk about the mill town and family secrets and things like that, it's interesting because you know, we've had a handful of family secrets come out. Some good friends of mine have found out about siblings they didn't know they had. And every time I log into 23andMe, I kind of wonder like, will this be the time? And the joke among my family, because my dad's side of the family and his mother was from Norway. And so they always say there was a suite hiding in the wood pile. So it's just like I'm absolutely fascinated by kind of the lineage and where we've come from and what we are and things like that. Was it fun researching all of this?
SPEAKER_00At the time in the early 2000s, I started going to college part-time at Syracuse University.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I went to the microfiche. Yes, the internet was around, but it wasn't like it is now. And I looked up what I'd learned about my grandmother, and sure enough, there it all was, all over the papers, and I was like, my God. So that's what really like you're right. And then doing the research for the book. I mean, I didn't live in Poland at the end of World War I and come to America in the steerage of a ship and all of that. So yeah, I think the research is the most fun part because that's where you get your ideas, because I had a basic outline of where I wanted the story, you know, like she's in Poland, she ends up in America, she'll end up in Syracuse, New York, actually. And okay, but how is it gonna end? I don't know. How am I gonna fill in the blank? Well, that's where the research comes in.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. And and I know Sandra, y'all should compare notes on it when she was writing Love Story in the time of the Great War. She spent like eight years researching it to build a fictional story around her ancestors she didn't really know. So I mean it was I'd imagine that's gonna be a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_00Well, it is, it really is. And just placing myself in that time period. Yeah, in America 1921, a lot going on. Prohibition, women are getting the right to vote. I mean, you know, a lot of a lot of things happening. Electricity, plumbing, you know what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_03So a lot of cars, automobiles, I mean, and even Yeah, and just how the technology's changed for us in the last, you know, 30 or years or so. I mean, who even knows what a micro features anymore? I was looking at I'm traveling this week and they don't even do passport stamps anymore. You know, and I was like, ah, just get an electronic thing. Come on. You want to get your hands on that stuff a little bit.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Would you ever do another type of this this type of book again, Roxanne?
SPEAKER_00Well, funny you should ask. After I've written this book, my mother gives me this shoe box. Like I'm talking about size 13 shoe box, okay. And it's full of letters from Poland that were written to my grandfather. I was like, So my friend at the Polish home, she knows how to speak Polish and read it. So she translated these letters for me. So there's one of my next stories for sure. So I'm excited about that.
SPEAKER_03It's fascinating. My sister-in-law had a bunch of letters from her family in Germany, and these letters are just reading them. It's such a different snapshot and time and the emotion and what these people went through is unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00And these letters are from the 60s and early 70s, a time when you know Poland was under communism, so totally different time period. That's awesome that you have all those.
SPEAKER_02No, you're good. We're gonna be uh having you at our workshop in August, which we're very excited. So it's gonna be August 22nd at CMY Art Center. And Roxanne, tell us what you're gonna be helping.
SPEAKER_00Oh my goodness. So, you know, when you get a book published, of course you want to get it out there, right? So you start going to author events and community events, and it's just about like how to draw people to your table when you're out there promoting your book. So I'll be sharing some things that I've learned and things I've learned from other authors. And oh my gosh, we're even gonna have a contest, aren't we? So we are gonna have a contest.
SPEAKER_01Well, anywhere.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I mean we could we could orchestrate that, but we're going to do a tabling contest. Because that's like you said, it's a huge part of, or you all know a huge part of having a book is going to events and talking about it and sharing it with people and signing. And presenting yourself in that situation is important. And you do a really great job of having your booth and giveaways and reasons for people to come by the table. So we're excited to have that. And just for a tabling event, you know, I think what we plan on doing is having like a bingo card so people will be encouraged to go by the tables and to give like their um their personal feedback. So it will just help at another level. You know, we're all about helping authors improve and so if they just come by your table and give you some pointers or if even from the public, but also getting the public uh an incentive to come by all the author tables because it'll be an arts and craft event. But if we have the public going specifically looking at the author tables, it will encourage them to go buy those ones for sure.
SPEAKER_00So and speaking of giveaways, I'd just like um everyone to know if they visit Catherine'sDreamgift.com with a city Catherine, they can get a ebook of my novel. So I encourage them to visit that and uh check out my book. Yeah, it's very good.
SPEAKER_03Uh that is awesome. I mean, and it's it's really interesting too, as we learned at AWP. We get a lot of feedback on site about our table and things like that. And some people said, Oh, it's just too chaotic over here. And other people are like, oh, I love it, it's so eye-catching. You know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it'll be interesting if there is some really good constructive feedback that comes from a lot of this.
SPEAKER_00It's a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah. And one of my next books is my school bus safety book because I used to be a school bus driver. And uh I became a New York State master instructor to help teach school bus drivers. And this book is about um it's about the characters in my book that represent the behaviors of a school bus like a frog that doesn't stay in itself. But it's all about teaching kids about how to stay safe on the bus and stay out of the danger zone. Because unfortunately, children can get injured or killed by their school bus. So that's what it's about. Yeah, yeah, I'm excited about yet important book.
SPEAKER_02Caitlin, we've got you waiting in the wings over here. How about uh tell us about your book? I know Jess loves it.
SPEAKER_03Uh-huh. Books uh yes, good books.
SPEAKER_02Should probably have a book.
SPEAKER_04I've gotten to the point where I can say, would you like to specify which of my books you'd like me to talk about first?
SPEAKER_02Yes. Well, you can talk about the one you did with us first, because yeah, what's your first?
SPEAKER_04Oh, yes. So my book that uh that Wildebeast um published is IDK What to Say, a guide for navigating social situations. So I had actually come to Wildebeast. Um, it's actually kind of a funny story. I swore off social media, I deactivated my Facebook account, but then when the time came when I thought I wanted to write a book and I was thinking about it, I thought, you know, I remember seeing, I remember following a publishing company and it said they were in Syracuse. So after like close to a year of no Facebook, I actually went in, reactivated the account just to find like I went through the pages that I was following and I was like, there it is, and I found Wildebees. Um and that was, you know, after like I said, after about a year of not having it. Anyway, I contacted, you know, Laura and Jess, and um I signed up for the Authorpreneur group and um we, you know, did our phone call and IDK what to say was not the reason that I called Wildebees. I wanted to write a novel and I had some ideas, nothing, you know, really set in stone. And we talked about writing a novel. Great, that's what we're gonna do. I signed up, here we go. I and then I was coming to the Authorpreneur weekly Zoom meetings, and it was a couple weeks in where just some casual conversation at the beginning of groups when everyone's still coming into the group, we were talking about just like we just talked about the advances of technology and how us older people, us 40 plus year old people are a little less, you know, internet and technically savvy. And we talked about how the younger generation probably just rolls their eyes at us and thinks we're but you know, but we we just need to be taught, we need to even though it seems like really basic information, you know, the the younger generation, it's it's just what they were, they were born with it, and it kind of comes second nature to them, so they have a hard time understanding why something that comes so easily to them is something that we struggle with. And then that conversation slipped on its head to, you know, oh, but you know, we look at the younger kids and say, What's so hard about returning a sweater a target? What's so hard about realizing that the ATM doesn't work? So what do you do? What do you mean you don't know what to do? You go in the bank and you go to the bank tell her, what's the bank tell her? So, you know, all this information that the 40 plus crowd has that we take for granted, things that we grew up with, are things that the younger generations are s it's not second nature to them and they haven't seen it exemplified, especially with COVID in the middle of their growing years, where you know, going to the grocery store with the whole family used to be kind of a thing. Everyone picked out and we would you would watch mom, you know, tabulate how much they're spending, and you'd go through the coupon book and you'd check things off the list and you'd watch mom interact with the cashier. All those things turned into you go once a week every other week, depending on your last name, uh you know, what your last name starts with. And I and I now going into the grocery store, I do feel like I don't see families. I don't see a lot of kids with their parent. I see just one adult doing the shopping. And I think because you know, COVID maybe some of us mothers that went for the first time without a child until realized how really nice that was. Oh, we spent a little less because we didn't have a kid, you know, tossing stuff into the cart. So But anyway, so we talked about that and then it was sort of this joke. I said, you know, I could take I have young kids, you know, seventeen, eighteen year old kids that ask questions via text message. And I I feel like I could probably make a word document out of all these text messages with questions and answers and I could print it and staple it. And you know, and everyone kinda looked at me funny like this is a publishing group, like World Beat, they publish books, you know. So and then it it and then after that meeting I remember just thinking, Yeah, a guidebook, you know, and I there's all these situations that kids don't know what to and not just kids, I shouldn't say kids, but you know, we don't know what to say, we don't know what to do. We don't realize that we don't want to say to someone, Oh, this is so easy. You can do it because it's so easy. It is easy. But once you've seen how it's done and once you can review before being put into a situation what to expect. You know, and I'm definitely a person where I don't necessarily have social anxiety because um for the most part I I kinda do know what to expect because I've been in a lot of situations. I've watched, you know, my parents siblings, etcetera. So, you know, but putting these scenarios down on paper and saying, look, this is what's likely going to happen. And if this doesn't happen, here's one alternative that might happen. But really these are the only two situations, you know. And and to show people that without being, you know, oh it's easy, but showing them it is easy, but saying that with compassion and love and and saying, I'm telling you that it's easy because I believe in you and I know you can do this and here's what will happen. So, you know, then yeah, I mean I I had just this twenty page word doc with no formatting and no real depth to it. Sent that off to Jess, and Jess came back with just some great, you know, prompts and things and and she worked this dog's sneezing. Holiness magic. I mean, I really feel that one of my strengths as a writer is with prompt. You know, I may not be able to sit down and have an idea on my own to write something, but ask me a question, tell me what you want me to write about, give me a prompt, and then give me feedback about what I've written, make me dig deeper. So I I do I feel like I just work really well with getting feedback and making adjustments and realizing that oh, that could be I and so that's what um I think that's really what worked so well and so beautifully with IDK What to say, working with Jess. I mean just the ideas that she had, um, to to really try to remember how you put beef it up? Was it beef it? Did we beef it up?
SPEAKER_03That sounds like that sounds like me beef it up.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, but it was just like every single comment that she had or like a question, you know? Um, and so you know, take twenty, thirty word document pages and turn that into a close to I think it's about a hundred page guide book with graphics and with formatting that really makes a big difference, you know. Um I'd never ever formatted anything in my life. I'd never had that experience. So certainly it it became a functional guide because of Jess and because of Laura, because of Wildebeast and their and their experience and expertise. So that was just the collaboration of it was just a beautiful, beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_03And that's just it. I've said this at least five times for completely different situations lately. It takes a village, it really does. Not just with raising children or whatever the terminology is usually used for, but I mean, you have such a voracious appetite for learning, like not many people I've seen before. Dear dear listeners, when she said she had no idea how to format, within a few months after leaving Wildebeast, she went and self-published her own book, learned how to do the cover design, wrote it, formatted, and you did it all. I mean, with a little help from your kids and things like that. But I mean it's unbelievable, Caitlin. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And and it's it's just interesting too, because I mean when I look back at my career before writing anything, uh before publishing anything, I was a spring maker. I walked into a factory for the first time in my life, other than Ben and Jerry's. That does not count. That's an ice cream tour. Um, but you know, I walked into a manufacturing plant as a temporary employee just to do assembly work, and I I looked around like, what are we making here? I I love to make stuff. I'm a creator, I'm a musician, I like to write, I like to create. What are we making? I want to make this too, and oh, there's buttons, they have buttons on their machines, you know. Um, and I and like, you know, yeah, I definitely thrive on learning new things, and that is exactly what I did with that career. I went from putting springs into holes to making those springs myself out of, you know, raw material with machines and tools. And in that experience, combined with Wildebee's um writing the guidebook, those two things together made me realize anything I want to learn, anything I want to put my mind to, and anything that I can devote time to, I understand that's that's really the biggest thing is time, and I understand that. But I was blessed to have that opportunity to actually devote the time to it. I I mean to anyone that wants to self-publish, I will tell you this. It is hard, it is frustrating, you have to be very patient. If you use a certain printing that rhymes with springum, you must be patient because it's not as simple as submit a file and immediately hear back. It could be days before you hear back. You need to need to be patient, you need to slow down a little bit, you know. I mean, don't just upload files and then so um but what what was easy, so easy to write into my first novel, was was one of the themes is that nothing worth having is easy. And just because it's hard doesn't mean you can't do it. Yes, it will be hard. But the more things that you the more hard things you do in your life, the easier those things will become. And there will be a day when you look back and go, you know, gee, I thought that was hard. Now look at what I'm dealing with. But if that was hard and I get it, and I made it through, and I learned a lot, you know, and and just more on a more even more positive note, it's also, you know, anyone for self-publishing is reach out to other self-published people and and to anyone that has any experience. I think that a a lot of people assume that people are kind of greedy with their knowledge. They worry about, oh, how can I ask this of them? How can I ask this question? What if they don't know the answer? What if they don't want to help me? Believe me when I say that. We've all in this community, in this in a writing community, everyone has helped somebody at some point. This person helped me figure out this formatting issue. Now this person's asking me a question. I didn't have an issue with that, I know the answer. And it just it goes round and round. Um, and I learned a ton from you know, just both my experience with Wilde Beast uh and with from other writers and other uh other things. But yeah, I mean anything worth having, if you really you want something badly enough, doesn't matter how hard it is, you do it and you bang your head against the wall as many times as you need to, not too hard, but get a punching bag, but you just you just don't give up and you don't don't be afraid to ask for help.
SPEAKER_03You know, it's so funny because this quote keeps coming back in. It's an old Rudyard Kipling quote that I love. It's like, if you don't get what you want, it's either a sign that you truly didn't want it or you tried to bargain over the price. Which is kind of what Jess Novak was talking about in Dare to Begin, where she's like, yeah, not anybody can just be a musician. It takes 10,000 hours of practice doing it. So, you know, price not being literal financial cost, but I mean, look at all the hours and time you've put into just writing these books and building this community that you're building too, which is super important. I mean, your tagline keeps shining, your light matters. I mean it's super important, especially right now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, both of you are super inspiring, and Caitlin, we're so grateful that you bothered to look us back up on Facebook. Yeah, but now I'm stuck in the social media world again. I know, but it speaks to how important it is. You do social media and you think it's such a waste of time, and I shouldn't you know, why should I bother? And these are clearly two two reasons why you absolutely do need to be teaching.
SPEAKER_04Right, but I mean I really only use the social media as that professional platform. I mean, I do still have my private ones, but it's funny, like my private Facebook page, if you go to it, you will notice that ninety-nine percent of it is just me as Caitlin, you know, resharing or reposting, what do you do? Um, sharing my author stuff to you know, to the people that I've known and but I mean the Instagram. Instagram is actually a really beautiful place. It it really is. Scrolling is not great. Don't spend too much time scrolling. But I am just floored by the people that I have met through Instagram. I mean to the point where in one person in particular, there's there's many, but one in particular has become my dearest friend. We actually share the same birthday. Yeah, that was pretty cool. Um, and when we did the AWP conference in Maryland, she lived an hour and a half from there and she drove up to Baltimore so we could meet in person. Yeah, it was funny, she thought I was gonna be tall. I don't know why, but I'm four foot ten. Um so and and I have so many just people, you know, another uh I don't know, I don't think she's indie, but I went to a bookstore in Dryden, New York, and I was like, Oh my gosh, that book, I follow that person on Instagram and I we've connected and we've chatted and I you know, I I'm gonna buy this book. And the woman was like, Yeah, she's a local author. So I ended up messaging her on Instagram saying, Um, we've been chatting and connecting for months as just social media Instagram people not knowing that we're we live an hour away from each other and you know, now she's come to some of my events, I've gone to hers. We're friends. I actually text her, you know, w when when an Instagram chat moves over to a private phone that's that's love, you know what I'm saying? So um, you know, th there are so many connections. I don't think that it's a waste of time. I do think that we can put too much into it as far as like content and and and the pleasing um how things look and the aesthetic stuff, you know and and I try not to get too hung up on that. If anything, uh I feel like my caption and my music that I choose for those things are more important than anything, and I'm not out to get views necessarily, I'm just out to find my people. Those people I I don't need a thousand followers if nine hundred and ninety of them aren't really my people, you know. So but it it's been a lesson for sure. And I do like I said, I just it's amazing that real people are on the other side of that, you know, that app. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean, and especially when you have a book like that one on the shelf behind you. Do you want to tell us a little bit about uh Amber Luna and maybe her sister?
SPEAKER_04That's coming soon. So yeah, I have it here. I will it's a little off-center, just don't look too hard.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's the sequel. This is the sequel. Looking beautiful.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so Amber Luna, my bright light, this was published last June. So pretty excited it was. It's a beautiful sticker, uh, the Moonbeam Award, it's a children's book award. It earned the bronze medal in the pre-teens mature issues. So and I want I I do always like to point out that Amber Luna does touch on some some pretty heavy topics. However, it has done what I what people have been saying is gentle. When I was writing it, my thought was like poetic. Um nothing is nothing is blatantly graphic, you know, uh as far as you know what especially Mari is dealing with. So this was published last June. And I I did not intend to write a sequel. This this was the novel, this was I had other ideas for other books, but at the end it really struck me that Amber's friendship with Mari makes a really big difference in Mari's life. Mari is dealing with some childhood trauma, memories of childhood trauma on her own. She is Amber gives Mari that light, that feeling of, okay, it's not hopeless. I can I need to to work on this, and I know that there's gonna be a lot of challenges ahead, but I I can do this. And that's you know, it's basically how the story ends, right? So but it then it occurred to me that Mari really went through some pretty heavy things, and friendship doesn't magically fix that. It is a foundation and it can give you what you need as far as the strength and the courage to bring it up with an appropriate, you know, whether it's a counselor or a trusted adult, you know, but I I really was just beginning to feel like that was the message I put into the world that oh, just just go find yourself a pale that believes in you and y you'll be healed. And that it was not sitting right with me. That's not how things go. So I you know, I I really want for the world to understand and know that Mari does heal. But healing is not a checkbox. It's not something that we done, you know, it's just ongoing processes. We all hear that, that you know, healing is a journey and that it's just a constant ebb and flow. And I said, Well, I really want for people to see how she's going to heal from that trauma. So, you know, the reality is that Mari really did need help and she needed to be in a wellness center, like it's whether, you know, psychiatric type ward. But I didn't want that to be too heavy, and I didn't want to overtake the whole story. So it's it's written very subtly. And yes, you know she's in a mental health facility for teens. However, the way that it's written is it's definitely more character-driven. So the story is more about the people that she meets after a time at North Star Wellness Center for Teens. And she does say that North Star Wellness Center, that's an awfully cliche name, but guiding light was already taken. So um, you know, I I wrote it with with sort of this guide of you know, rather than being a the spiritual alchemist, it's more of a mental health journey, you know, because the alchemist he meets all these people on this journey, and each of them teach them some teach him something. And that is what I wanted to do for Mari was you know, everyone that she met at the mental health facility gave her a little what I what I was writing on my outlands of the golden nugget. What what little golden nugget is each character going to give her that is going to just sort of piece itself together and become this thing at the end that she realizes she she's got the answers, she's got all the tools that she needs, and now it's time for her to to work through it and to get to that other side. And and the other side is not magic healing and you know being cured, is knowing that bad things happen to good people, and that you know, you make choices, you choose how you're going to react and deal with the negatives, and you move forward and just always reminding yourself that you made it through. All the hard things that you go through, you make it through. You've made it through that, you're gonna make it through this. Um so Mari's light burning bright, it's only Mari's perspective and just it's her journey to find yourself in a better place mentally.
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean it it is interesting, like you know, talking about friends and beastie besties and things like that, and you know, our friends can be our guiding light or give us those little nuggets that help us on a little bit further down on our path to healing. But really, I mean, as we all know, the power is in us. We just have to remember.
SPEAKER_02Yes. And we are out of time for our friend segment. It was awesome having you guys here.
SPEAKER_03And we love you both.
SPEAKER_02Yes, you guys are doing great. Roxanne, we're excited to have you join us in August. And Caitlin, we're glad you're gonna be having a table there. Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_04I'm all signed up.
SPEAKER_02Yes, so I hope others will join us and join another contest. And yeah, thank you for coming by, our friends are here segments. Thank you guys. We love you both. Bye. Bye. Well, that was awesome. They are they're so inspiring, those two.
SPEAKER_03I know. Again, could sit and just chit-chat all day with them.
SPEAKER_02I know, I think that was our longest chat so far. But oh, really?
SPEAKER_03That's awesome.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, it seems like it. All right, well, I think we want to leave people with some tips. You got anything?
SPEAKER_03You know, I mean, I guess it's just good to always keep learning, right? And as an editor, well, when I was I think I've mentioned before I asked for a dictionary for my birthday once when I was a kid. But, you know, in working with Avian Swangsong and Dr. Julianne DeSalle and their books lately, I have learned so many new words that I probably haven't retained. And also, you know, in your path of learning, sometimes you learn that maybe you've been really wrong along the way. So I learned that some words that I've been using previously were not very kind. So I've kind of tried to alter my language a little bit with that. But I've also learned some really big words that I didn't know what they meant. So it was really fun to look them up and kind of get a little acquainted with some new Oh my gosh. Well, I can't remember them now, so I'll have to go back. But then it made me think of some of the other words. I know, I know. But it's just fun to learn because you look and I was and it's just so great when you go, I've never actually seen that word before. And you know, it's close enough to another word where you could have thought they meant this word and not that word. So context is important. But as I was gaming, I noticed I said, Oh, look at that armor. It looks like a jaunty ponytail. And I'm like, Oh, I used to love that word. Or it's just words are a lot of fun. So for me, it's just always keep looking things up, keep learning. Yes.
SPEAKER_02What about you asking me to spell them? Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_03Don't double consonants. I can't do double consonants. I will never be able to spell recommend.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, tip from my end of things, I would say, since I'm I'm going back through my book that has been written over the last couple of years, getting it ready for editing. I need to read it again, update it. There's some things in there uh that are pretty outdated just because it's been so long since my first pass. But I created, created, and wrote our 90-day fiction journal while I wrote the first one because it was a real method that I used to every day write part of my book and gauge whether I was on track. And so, you know, we turned that into our our little freebie thing that we have. This guy Yes, the 90-day non-fiction writing journal. And I'm dusting that off and using it again for my second pass. So, you know, the just the tip that I have for today is if there's any whether it's you writing the book, publishing the book, anything, just uh grab those 30 minutes, an hour, whatever it is you'd like to dedicate every day, and make that the first thing that you do before any and this is not not a new tip. I'm just I'm doing it myself recently. And so it is I but I think though it's a lot of time it's applied to writing. I think apply it to anything that you've been struggling with or stuck with, whether it's writing the book, publishing the book, making social media posts, building your website, whatever it is, just like dedicate that time every day and do it first thing because we just keep putting it off. Because these usually it's tied to something that's just a personal goal, right? Finishing a book, precisely, building your website is kind of personal and you don't you put yourself last.
SPEAKER_03100%. And it goes back to the accountability stuff we were talking about earlier, where it's like, you know, even you said to me a few days ago you were gonna dedicate 30 to 60 minutes a day to this. You texted me yesterday and said, I'm going radio silence to do my book, and then you did, and you texted me when you were done. And it's just like even just like putting it out there, you know, and saying it is it's so great to get this stuff done. And I mean, I know for me because I'll be like, I'm gonna do this. And then I'm like, oh, but there's shiny things over here. So having an accountability like you but buddy like you that will like keep me on course is awesome. So I'm really excited. I'm really excited about June. I think we're gonna have a lot of fun and kind of look at some strategy and just my favorite word. My favorite non-word.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. All right, well, we're out of time. So if you have a beastie bestie story, if you have a best friend you did something really cool with, you have Rand and his brother who hiked the Appalachian Trail in a spiritual spiritual passage in their 70s, that is a beastie bestie story. If you started a business together, beastie bestie story. If I don't know, what other examples do we have? Anything. If you're a husband and wife that have started a nonprofit, whatever it is, like we want to hear those stories and share them. And the stories include things like how what are some of the challenges you face together, and what are some of the fun things that you've learned along the way. We have a form on the website. You can just go to wildebeest.com and willdebees publishing company.com and I don't know what's at wildebeest.com. So whatever's there, don't say I sent you. And that's it. That's our show for today.
SPEAKER_03Yep, so we'll check you later. But until then, be yourself, run wild, and take leaps. Don't forget to high five your homies and pen your pages.
SPEAKER_02Bye. Bye.