In the Telling

Children's Book Publishing

February 04, 2020 Liz Christensen / Karl Beckstrand Season 2 Episode 22
In the Telling
Children's Book Publishing
Show Notes Transcript

Guest Karl Beckstrand of Premio Books talks about being published, self publishing, running a publishing business, literary agents, editors, distributors, print on demand, working with illustrators, beta readers, bilingual books, international publishing and selling through Amazon.  A thorough look for anyone interested in getting a children's book published. 

In the Telling is excited to be back with its second season with plans to release two radio play mini-series and to host a Live Show for its One Year Anniversary.  You can find out more about “In the Telling” at lizzylizzyliz.com

Theme music by Gordon Vetas

In the Telling is hosted and produced by me, Liz Christensen

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Karl Beckstrand:   0:00
Everybody either is an immigrant or is a descendant of an immigrant. If you think about it, everybody here, except maybe Native American. So diversity has made us a great country I think.

Liz Christensen:   0:13
The voice you just heard belongs to Karl Beckstrand, author, illustrator and publisher at Premio Books.

Karl Beckstrand:   0:19
I'm Karl Beckstrand. I grew up in San Jose, California. I miss the beach.

Liz Christensen:   0:24
Premio Books is a multicultural Children's book publishing company.  

Karl Beckstrand:   0:28
I think it would be very boring to have a book about diversity for kids.

Liz Christensen:   0:32
Just, just straight up like--

Karl Beckstrand:   0:34
Yeah, they don't wanna learn about diversity, but just having a diverse world that they are jumping into in the book that's enriching.

Liz Christensen:   0:41
Karl joined me for the first episode of Season two to talk about being published, self publishing, running a publishing business, literary agents, editors, distributors, print on demand, working with illustrators, beta readers, bilingual books, international publishing and selling through Amazon. It's a thorough look for anyone interested in getting a Children's book published. I'm your host, Liz Christenson, and it's all in the telling. Welcome to Episode 22 with my guest Karl Beckstrand as as we take a thorough look at Children's book authoring, illustrating and publishing. Listen through to the end of the episode to hear the episode extra, Karl reading one of his Children's books in Spanish with English translation paraphrasing,

Karl Beckstrand:   1:29
didn't like writing When I was kid,

Liz Christensen:   1:31
You talked a little bit about that white nor reading, and

Karl Beckstrand:   1:34
I didn't like to read either, because the reading that I was exposed to was textbooks that changed a little bit. When I was in third grade, I got the measles and my grandmother bought me a chapter book called Bicycles North.

Liz Christensen:   1:45
What is that about?

Karl Beckstrand:   1:46
It was an adventure of these kids on their bikes. Solve a crime. But it was great. No, it was the first time I was transported elsewhere by book.

Liz Christensen:   1:54
How did you turn this corner from deciding that maybe some of the fiction that they're some of the books out there interesting to like? I'm gonna write them and I'm gonna publish them.

Karl Beckstrand:   2:03
And even then, I never consciously chose to be an author. While it was a beauty, I you I kept getting Children's story ideas. They would just hit me, you know, and just kind of hound me until I wrote them down and then that set him aside. And I think, Okay, When I'm 65 retired, maybe I'll try to find a publisher. But I was fortunate after shortly after I moved to Utah, I met a gentleman who published books and he got my first book out.

Liz Christensen:   2:28
I want to ask you about him, but before I do, how did you know they were Children's books? How how did it feel like a Children's book in that, like just a

Karl Beckstrand:   2:36
Well, they were clearly Children's books in that books for adults because they were goofy. Okay, silly. I mean, I got ideas for for novels and two I have folders for filled with ideas for novels. But most of the ideas that would come to me would be short, cute, goofy, quirky stories.

Liz Christensen:   2:56
So you just felt like Okay, yeah, this is for kids. Before we go back to the first publisher, tell me about how you don't write for kids, though you said you write for adult

Karl Beckstrand:   3:05
right because my target audience is really people who are capable of buying books, and that's not a child. So parents, teachers, librarians, Those are the people that I target my books. Toward what? Since you have your own kids, I'm sure you've read a book to a child that was boring to you.

Liz Christensen:   3:19
Oh, absolutely.

Karl Beckstrand:   3:21
Yeah, that's torture. I hate that. And so when I wrote, I thought, OK, I'm gonna put stuff in here that's going to be entertaining for adults. I mean, nothing sophisticated, but just little things that only an adult would get goofy funny things.

Liz Christensen:   3:34
How do you write for a librarian?

Karl Beckstrand:   3:37
So I brains are challenging because they're sophisticated. They know ever had a lot, so they know what's good and what isn't. And so I tryto have twists, things that are unexpected in my stories. I tried, of course, be multicultural because I know that they want to represent the real world to their patrons. And so so do I.

Liz Christensen:   3:57
We're gonna come back to multicultural. But before we do talk to me about your first publisher because that's a pretty unique story.

Karl Beckstrand:   4:02
Yeah, it was pretty. Well, he was a great guy, local guy here in Utah who had published a series of books. I was this novice at a League of Utah writers. Picnic wasn't even an official. Media was just a social event, and I'm walking around with manuscript in my hand. Anybody wanna read my manuscripts? So anybody know an agent anyway? So he read a couple of them and he said, I'll publish this one just like

Liz Christensen:   4:24
that. Just Yeah, yeah. Was he publishing his own stuff? Did he have his own publishing house? Yes. Okay,

Karl Beckstrand:   4:30
so he knew howto he knew the printers. He knew how to get the I. ESPN is all those things that I didn't know at the time. And he got an illustrator set up and got everything lined up in the day we were going to print. He died.

Liz Christensen:   4:41
How did he pass?

Karl Beckstrand:   4:42
Ah, food. Poison. Seriously? Yeah. So nobody thought it was that serious. You know, I talked to him the day before he died. He was feeling a little down because it didn't something bad. Next day, his wife called me and told me he passed.

Liz Christensen:   4:55
That's astonishing. So what does that mean for your book? Did it still get published? Yeah. Threw him. Yeah, it

Karl Beckstrand:   5:03
was terrifying, but it was also good because I learned a lot because I had to take over. I mean, every author should should realize that they have to market their book. Whether you have a big publishing house or self published, you're always gonna have to do your own marketing. So I got kinda got a crash course. I learned what he had set up and how he said it up. I got his contacts from his wife. I talked to the printer, was able to finish getting those books printed and shipped and all that. Yeah, I just had to just take over everything

Liz Christensen:   5:33
like Carl, when he was thrown into having to learn on the day his book was published, I know practically nothing about publishing. One of the early clarifications I needed was the difference between an author's titles and authors products.

Karl Beckstrand:   5:46
I have a 22 stories published. I have about 100 and 30 products out. So counting e books and language versions, it's a lot more products.

Liz Christensen:   5:54
So if the same book is released, hard copy and e book as

Karl Beckstrand:   5:58
soft cover and sometimes have an audio book.

Liz Christensen:   6:01
Okay, so 27 titles in 100 products Okay, cool. How long from that experience of Oh, my gosh. I have to follow up on all this myself. right. So Premium.

Karl Beckstrand:   6:12
I started my publishing company probably within months of this publisher's death, because I wanted to do a bilingual version of the first book and he didn't want to it. So I had newest version in a bilingual version. So I set up my own publishing company. And then I had another publisher approached me about a non fiction story. They asked me if I knew any stories about immigrant Children that were true. I said, Yeah, and my family history have a couple of this company published. And his prayer, which was like my third book There Were was so Hard Problems just typically selected their own illustrators, and usually they know what they're doing. And it's great. And they actually chose a really good one for in its parent, excellent illustrator. But we're not allowed to communicate. I'm not allowed to communicate with the illustrator. Really? Yeah, and the basis of this true story about this immigrant girl was that the family was poor, really poor, and the images came out from the illustrator in this posh setting. Beautiful clothing, like they were in a castle,

Liz Christensen:   7:09
very aesthetically pleasing and completely inaccurate, right? So

Karl Beckstrand:   7:13
I said to the publisher, This isn't right. This isn't how they are portrayed in what I wrote, and they said, Well, we'll just take that part out We'll just totally eliminate that section of your story. That's so It was really hard. We had to wrestle about how the book was gonna end up.

Liz Christensen:   7:28
Was that choice? Do you think because of a marketing perspective or because it's faster to tell an author, change your words? That is

Karl Beckstrand:   7:35
just to tell an illustrator to do new images. Wow, which makes sense, But still it was painful.

Liz Christensen:   7:42
It makes sense, is a business decision. But as a purchaser of Children's books, if the author and illustrator are not the same name or a married couple or something like that, I always just sort of assumed that the author was at the helm of this story. And that makes me feel like the illustrator, uh, that they may be working with things after, like, the second layer. But it's a layer that supersedes somehow.

Karl Beckstrand:   8:08
Yeah, well, you can have a little bit more confidence that the big publishing houses know what they're doing. More than a small one, and then both times I worked with small publishers, but the big publishing houses hopefully have a better gauge for is the artwork matching the story? For example, they'll get sketches first before there's any color work done. Sure they don't have worked on unnecessarily.

Liz Christensen:   8:28
And then did you Would you get to see those? Do you think? I think

Karl Beckstrand:   8:31
it depends on the prestige of the author. OK, so maybe in a big publishing house to they wouldn't. But they would check that the story matched the sketches before the final artwork was done.

Liz Christensen:   8:41
Sure. Okay. Tension the site. Take me back, Thio. Despair. We worked it out.

Karl Beckstrand:   8:47
I wrestled with them over a lot of things, getting my rights back.

Liz Christensen:   8:50
Explain to me what getting my rights back is.

Karl Beckstrand:   8:53
So when you go through a publisher, you sign over the publishing rights to them. You're still the author, of course, But they have the right usually the exclusive rights to publish your book. And they hold those rights either for, you know, five years or a certain period of time, or the agreement will just say until the book is out of print and

Liz Christensen:   9:11
then they're done with it, and

Karl Beckstrand:   9:12
then you can request your rights back and then publish them yourself or go through another publisher.

Liz Christensen:   9:16
So you have difficulty getting it, writes back.

Karl Beckstrand:   9:18
Yeah, and difficult to getting royalties. And the artist? The poor artist. She did such a good job, and she got paid pennies. I mean, a professional artist would get five or $6000 for what she did, and I think she got less than 1000 0 and she had to fight to get it. She had to pester them,

Liz Christensen:   9:37
just like bothering me. I can't cut me a royalty check. What were the biggest things you had to do in order to become your own publishing house? Had

Karl Beckstrand:   9:45
to get a license to the state of Utah. It was pretty simple. Utah's pretty business friendly. So get a federal tax I D. Number like a Social Security. But for a business set up a bank account, maybe a website, which I had a friend do for me, which was great at the time but has since been redone a lot more professional,

Liz Christensen:   10:03
and then you'd already known who to contact about printing because of your previous experience.

Karl Beckstrand:   10:09
My first publisher, printed in Asia and he was smart because even with shipping and customs that you pay for a foreign printer, it's still about half of what you had paid a print in the United States.

Liz Christensen:   10:20
You print on demand?

Karl Beckstrand:   10:21
Yes, in fact, that's what I prefer to do now. Rather than have a garage full of books,

Liz Christensen:   10:26
how does that work exactly? What's your turnaround time?

Karl Beckstrand:   10:29
After the book is written, I upload files. I convert them to pdf. Basically, Amazon does print on demand. Also, Ingram desperate, undermanned for hard cover. So you upload your file and the book doesn't exist until a customer clicks on and orders it, and then it prints and ships to them and you don't touch it. But you get a royalty.

Liz Christensen:   10:47
That sounds really convenient. Yes, how long does that roughly take for the book to print and ship through Amazon

Karl Beckstrand:   10:53
within days? I mean, if the customer orders that express them, they'll print it right away and ship it right away.

Liz Christensen:   10:58
This sounds, um, surprisingly straightforward to me, and I've never gotten the impression that being an author and self publishing was on any level straightforward.

Karl Beckstrand:   11:11
Amazon does get most of the money, so it's more expensive for me to do print on demand than it would be for me to go to Asia and print books and then sell them myself. But Amazon would allow me to sell printed books through them as well. It's more complicated. And I don't like to do it that way with, um,

Liz Christensen:   11:26
this isn't the expedient version for you.

Karl Beckstrand:   11:28
Yeah, they tell you that you could set your price for your books within a certain range. So basically, they're controlling your price. And for years, I just banged my head against the wall, thinking they're forcing me to price my books so high that nobody will want to buy them. But you can learn to operate within their system and still still get a profit.

Liz Christensen:   11:45
Where else are your books available? I know you've got some in brick and mortar stores. I have had

Karl Beckstrand:   11:50
them in Barnes and Noble on some cost goes and other stores. Now I don't chase bookstores. Don't do the leg work. It's a lot of legwork, okay? And really getting your book in a bookstore is wonderful once or twice. But then you realize that what you're doing is you're placing your book right in the middle of all of its competition. And so the best places to sell the book are places where books are not so Amazon is good, but they're not my largest source of revenue.

Liz Christensen:   12:16
If I may ask

Karl Beckstrand:   12:17
libraries, schools and then any venue that's Jermaine to your story, for example, have an astronomy book, a picture book about astronomy. And so I contacted planetariums and those kind of organizations that are little stores there. So I've had my books in those kind of places, like a planetarium gift shop is gonna have telescopes and games and then one book about stars, and so not a lot of competition.

Liz Christensen:   12:40
That makes a lot of sense. How do you get into a library? I'm still learning

Karl Beckstrand:   12:44
that. But most of my sales do come from wholesalers that distribute specifically the libraries schools.

Liz Christensen:   12:50
So you're not having to go to like the bountiful brand to the Davis County Library? Don't know. I just did days ago. How did that go?

Karl Beckstrand:   12:59
Good. So I have a catalog, was had a road trip to Boise, and so on my way home, I stopped at several libraries. Just the main library. Don't go to each individual library but the main library where their acquisitions person is.

Liz Christensen:   13:10
So the main branch of a county library. Right? Okay.

Karl Beckstrand:   13:13
And then I dropped off a catalog, and I let them know on the back of my catalog that they can order through me. Or that can order through my wholesalers, which are the biggest distributors in the country. Eager and Baker and Taylor fall it. And so libraries order through them. And so just by pointing that out shows them that I'm legitimate and they could get my books that way. And I get orders to remind my wholesalers followed Tim's meat order and it'll go to a library.

Liz Christensen:   13:35
And you are going to your wholesaler not as an author, per se, but as a publisher, Right. Okay, because I would imagine that if I contacted a national public distributor company and I don't have That's an infrastructure behind of the website and a tax I D number and all that. Okay. And a significant number of titles of eso

Karl Beckstrand:   13:54
Some wholesalers require that you have a certain number of titles before they'll even look at you.

Liz Christensen:   13:59
What do you do? Like I have 20 titles, all right, Just like yeah, I

Karl Beckstrand:   14:04
thought That's what I tell them. But first I had, like, three. So one of them, one of the distributor said, or wholesalers said, You don't have enough titles to be a client of ours. So talk to us when you're at that level.

Liz Christensen:   14:17
Did they tell you what that level was?

Karl Beckstrand:   14:18
Yeah, have at least 10 titles. And then another thing that helped me get in with those distributors is Amazon will at least list your title with those big distributors as being something that they could get if they wanted to. They don't typically goto Amazons list and order books, but at least you're technically on Ingram's list or Baker and Taylor's list. Okay, so once I contacted those wholesalers in person or on the phone, I said, You already have several of my titles on your list. They weren't selling them, but I said, Can we do an agreement directly? And then we started agreement, and then they started ordering,

Liz Christensen:   14:52
so if you could go back and do this with all the knowledge you already have, ideally, you write a bunch and then you put them on Amazon and then you contact a distributor when you set up your business somewhere between right a bunch and put them on Amazon, right? Okay. Does premium except, um, submissions or manuscripts?

Karl Beckstrand:   15:11
We don't. I am actually a distributor now, because I also market other authors works, But I am not actively seeking other authors Manuscript. I am open to receiving illustration. Submissions.

Liz Christensen:   15:26
Okay,

Karl Beckstrand:   15:27
So an illustrator Kenichi, mail me with their website or their portfolio and show me their work because we always need more artists.

Liz Christensen:   15:33
Let's drop that email address in close proximity to

Karl Beckstrand:   15:35
okay, Carl K r l at primi o Books p r E m io books dot com

Liz Christensen:   15:42
If this person is kind of new to illustrating what what sort of a submission would you be looking for? Is this the PDF file A. J. Peg file A ping file of website

Karl Beckstrand:   15:51
ideally a website. Okay, because there's no limit to what they can put up there, you know, ideally, someone who's done book illustrations, however that's not required, okay, that just have portrait's and still lives and landscapes and and goofy doodles. We want to see it all that.

Liz Christensen:   16:06
Do you have a media that the word I want preference. Medium preference? Yeah. No.

Karl Beckstrand:   16:13
The one requirement I have for illustrators for our Children's books is that it not be clean and pristine and cute. See, because the world is deluged with clean and pristine and cute. See? So I want to see a little bit edgy, sketchy, loose kind of art or a fine art. Look, those are the kinds of things that, like

Liz Christensen:   16:31
I want you to read one of your books aloud to me. Would you be willing to do that?

Karl Beckstrand:   16:35
Sure. This is a cookbook. I never intended to write a cookbook, but my editor suggested that I had recipes to this. It's called bad bananas. When bananas, They're young, they're green and firm. They conform nicely to the bunch. How are you?

Liz Christensen:   16:48
How are you,

Karl Beckstrand:   16:50
Justus? They start to turn a nice yellow color. We happily bring them home. Oh, pick us. Pick us. But soon they start sneaking rights on fruit hats or taking the fruit bowl out for late night spins. Suddenly, they're a bad influence on other fruit. Hanging out in pairs on corners or in dimly lit lunchbox is no longer good for breakfast. You wouldn't want this bunch near your oranges unfit for splits. They lose any chance of getting into a good pie. They start to smell and attract the wrong crowd. All cleaned up my act. When I'm good and ripe, they try scary stunts. And this one's skateboarding on top of a blender,

Liz Christensen:   17:24
right in proximity to the banana smoothie recipe.

Karl Beckstrand:   17:27
Yeah, and take crazy dares. This one's being slid on by a little old lady who falls down and she says, Bad banana, Nothing but trouble. They don't listen to anyone. They start turf wars with rival Bunches.

Liz Christensen:   17:40
Bunches of great

Karl Beckstrand:   17:41
fun says This is our countertop in the banana. Say tough bananas. Your mother's a raisin. Eat my appeal. Many of these slimy types say that they're sick and need help. I was grown this way. Others try to hide their decay, pretending they're still good

Liz Christensen:   17:57
dipped in chocolate.

Karl Beckstrand:   17:58
Yeah, and rolling in that Some just go nuts. Oh, their parents sometimes wish their fruit had been creamed when they were still young and firm. It used to be such a sweetie. You can throw them in the cooler, but that just makes them more off color. And then there's a really brown banana talking toe Tomato says, Hey, sweet tomato, Come here often, she says. Chill out, you're rotten. In the end, the worst bananas get fried or put away for good in the waste basket. Child baby, hold on a minute while the best bananas give their lives for the benefit of breakfast everywhere, there's still good in you. I can feel it, says a healthy yellow banana to really black banana. The black banana says, Help me take this peel off. He looks kind of like Darth Vader.

Liz Christensen:   18:40
He does.

Karl Beckstrand:   18:41
Even bad bananas contain not good. You've already saved me, he says, and he's put into banana bread. Even delicious.

Liz Christensen:   18:49
That's so clever tohave a progression of the recipes that matches the natural progression of a banana. I want to bounce back to when you said to You, right, multicultural books. What does that mean? Where I girl

Karl Beckstrand:   19:01
get attracted computer professionals from all over the world. So in school we had people from India, Vietnam, Africa, just everywhere,

Liz Christensen:   19:09
because tech companies

Karl Beckstrand:   19:10
yeah, and then, of course, lots of Latinos. California's full of Latinos. It was settled by Latinos, so that was normal for me and it was very enriching and So when I would talk to illustrators about illustrating the story, I'd say OK, and make sure these are not all blond haired, blue eyed kids because that's not the real world.

Liz Christensen:   19:27
What other elements of storytelling are you using to convey a multicultural world?

Karl Beckstrand:   19:34
So, um, a lot of my books were in Spanish and have a pronunciation guide. I haven't had any stories illustrated with people with physical challenges or mental challenges yet, but I'd like to do that.

Liz Christensen:   19:47
Do you feel like you have to, like, have you really have you really had to overtly state I need them to not all be white blond kids.

Karl Beckstrand:   19:55
Yes, if you were to do a study. They have done studies on Children's books, and and the characters and the Children's books are not representative of what the real population in United States is. Our the world, you know. Historically, it's been a white author and a white illustrator is not so much anymore. But even now, when there's a KN author of color or an illustrator of color, sometimes they will overly represent white characters. Just gonna think, Oh, Children's book. It has to look like this

Liz Christensen:   20:21
because that's the way it's always look okay. Actually. Want to follow up on bilingual in your books? You are bilingual. Are you riding the Spanish?

Karl Beckstrand:   20:30
Yes. Except for my last book, The latest one had a lot of text. Typically, when I write in Spanish and I go to this, the Spanish editors, I get native Spanish speaking editors who are editors to correct my Spanish shuts. So it's right. And what is a short, simple book like Bad Bananas? I could write the text out in Spanish, and then they would have corrections. But I realized, when my text is longer like my last book was a little bit longer, it would just be easier for them to write it in Spanish. So that's what I had him do on this last one.

Liz Christensen:   20:57
Um, an editor, a translator who's writing that for you?

Karl Beckstrand:   21:02
Um, there's a gal named him Ortiz, who's been a professional editor here, and you have for years done everything for the LDS Church and actually have a second Spanish speaking editor. Check her work. I

Liz Christensen:   21:14
have to check each other. That makes sense because

Karl Beckstrand:   21:17
Spanish is different. Depending on the country you go to

Liz Christensen:   21:19
Okay,

Karl Beckstrand:   21:19
so if I just had one person checked my Spanish, she could overlook a word that is a swear word in another country. Okay. And so having a second person from another country double check at least gives me a little bit more protection against those kind of problems.

Liz Christensen:   21:33
Yeah. Certain kinds of slang or Okay,

Karl Beckstrand:   21:35
the The thing that's cool about the Spanish is how you do a pronunciation guide. Just a little short paragraph of the beginning of each bilingual book that tells how to pronounce the words in Spanish or tell the Spanish be granted or not some in English

Liz Christensen:   21:47
on a logistical level. Is it harder to lay out a bilingual book?

Karl Beckstrand:   21:51
Yeah, because it needs more space for the text.

Liz Christensen:   21:54
Okay,

Karl Beckstrand:   21:54
so the illustrators have to be told extra space because the text is gonna be in there twice.

Liz Christensen:   22:00
The illustrators, the one who's kind of picking out where that space on the page is going to exist. Yeah, and I really like

Karl Beckstrand:   22:06
to let the illustrator have free rein originally, at least when they're doing their sketches. Because so often they come up with ideas that I never thought of really creative things. Yeah, we have to tweak something or ask them to change this or that to match the story better. But often they have the best ideas for how it looks.

Liz Christensen:   22:22
Are you telling them I always want the Spanish to appear first or always want English to a perverse or it doesn't matter. You

Karl Beckstrand:   22:28
know, I don't even tell him that because I put the texting afterward. So whether the Spanish is first or second doesn't matter to the illustrator.

Liz Christensen:   22:36
Does that have? Do you keep a rule for yourself? Book wide, though, or does it fluctuate? It

Karl Beckstrand:   22:41
changes because sometimes one language will have a little bit longer text on the other. Okay, so wherever there's better spaces where that longer kicks is gonna go, that's first or second.

Liz Christensen:   22:50
That makes sense. I

Karl Beckstrand:   22:51
use a different font for the language, so English will always be in this fund. The Spanish always been that far

Liz Christensen:   22:55
so visually, I can quickly find my place right. How do you have to market it differently if it's a bilingual book, do you distribute a different leak, or does that not matter to national distributors?

Karl Beckstrand:   23:04
I hope the national distributors are eager to get legal books I know parents are, and I know librarians are teachers, on the other hand, tend to prefer single language books. So if it's gonna be a Spanish English book, I also print a Spanish only version for teachers because they prefer just have a single language generally.

Liz Christensen:   23:24
Okay, Like if they're an immersion program, they don't want you falling back on your English, right? Okay.

Karl Beckstrand:   23:30
Not all teachers, but most I found would rather have it just be one language.

Liz Christensen:   23:33
Tell me about your typical work week.

Karl Beckstrand:   23:35
It's funny when I present on publishing groups, I tell them half of your job is marketing. Even if you have a publisher. Even if you signed with a big publishing house, they're gonna expect you to do a lot of marketing. But the last year, so I found that I have spent about 75% of my time marketing. Yeah, so it's kind of ouch, but yeah, the first thing I do in the days, right, so that I can get it in because that's what I am is I'm a writer first, and so I'll do some research for whatever I'm working on, or I'll do some direct writing and Sometimes it's just a few minutes. Sometimes it's several hours. I don't have a set time, but I always make sure that I do something first thing that has to do it right. And

Liz Christensen:   24:12
you have to wake up pretty early to make that work out.

Karl Beckstrand:   24:14
No nice to be my own boss,

Liz Christensen:   24:19
so you get up in your right and then

Karl Beckstrand:   24:21
and so after I've done writing, then I will do maybe Social Media posts to promote the latest book, or maybe something that's free online. And then I'll do more heavy duty marketing, which is like emailing librarians or filling orders that I've received or invoicing things like that.

Liz Christensen:   24:41
But you're not having to do any of your shipping, your inventory or warehousing or any of that.

Karl Beckstrand:   24:45
I still do shipping again. Print on demand saves me a lot of that, but I also have inventory on hand in case a distributor needs something quickly. Okay, so they say, you know, we ship this right away and I've got it, and I could just send it.

Liz Christensen:   24:58
Do you do book fairs, your conventions or anything like that?

Karl Beckstrand:   25:00
Done a lot of book fairs and writers conferences and you know we have your table in your books. They're all out there and you're signing books, so that's fun. There are things you can do to be more successful. I see a lot of authors sitting behind their table like a quiet mouse is not having a lot of activity. So you have to be a little bit out there, you know, talking to people and maybe not always behind the table. Marketing does require that you be an extrovert because you have to pick up the phone sometimes and call people. And so a lot of authors just say, I I just want to write and do you know you could do that and you can get your book out there on Amazon print on demand, but you won't sell a lot unless you engage people.

Liz Christensen:   25:38
What tools are you using to, like, put this together? Like what? Your favorite computer program? What your favorite.

Karl Beckstrand:   25:44
So I love photo shop for the pictures with illustrations. I've illustrated five or six of my own books, and then I use Adobe and designed to lay them out to add the text, have the copyright information and then to create a pdf that I'll upload either. Dam is honored in Graham for print on demand and also for e books.

Liz Christensen:   26:03
And you make this sound so much less complicated than I always felt like it was

Karl Beckstrand:   26:08
like, people may not know how to make a pdf or the real struggle might be to get the pdf to be in the right format that the print on demand company wants

Liz Christensen:   26:16
in terms of, like, pixels or no, that's not okay. Dots per inch dp I Okay,

Karl Beckstrand:   26:20
um, things like that. But if you can get, maybe you have a friend that can do lay out for you and make a pdf for you. Otherwise, yeah, publishing is much simpler than it used to be. Okay, so I didn't know Photoshopped in California. After I got to Utah, I took one photo shop class. It was like an all day class. I think I paid $300 but that was the best investment I ever

Liz Christensen:   26:40
like. A workshop for master class. Okay.

Karl Beckstrand:   26:42
Yeah, because I wanted to learn it. Now I teach it teacher tonight. Tech College, Two nights a week. Digital media. Because I love those programs.

Liz Christensen:   26:51
If I may ask what are your streams of income like, How do you make all of this financially viable life

Karl Beckstrand:   26:57
for you? Yeah, such a competitive genre that I'm in Just the fact that I still exist as a Children's publisher is amazing. After 15 years,

Liz Christensen:   27:06
that is really good,

Karl Beckstrand:   27:07
because yeah, not many last. My sales since 2011 have been trending upward slowly, so I couldn't support a big family on what I get from books. And then, yeah, I teach two nights a week at a tech college,

Liz Christensen:   27:21
having control over your own mark own marketing. Has that changed the way that you market since your self published?

Karl Beckstrand:   27:29
Oh, I think my marketing is better because it's because I control it. So So there are three reasons why I don't go through publishers anymore. One is control of the content. It's intelligent troubles with control of the money,

Liz Christensen:   27:43
setting, the price setting there like Amazon

Karl Beckstrand:   27:45
and also what you get. I mean, publishers keep most the money and then third formers marketing. If you go to a bookstore, you'll see posters and promotions for somebody big like Hillary Clinton or somebody like that. The publishers will spend money to market those kind of people. But the average author, they'll do a press release. They might make a poster for some bookstores, but that's it. They're done

Liz Christensen:   28:09
and they're doing a press release for everything they published, right? Okay.

Karl Beckstrand:   28:13
Beyond that, it's really the author's job to build a following, you know, online social media to get email addresses and maybe do newsletters or regular emails to their contacts. That's the author's job, whether or not your self published professional, you know, publishing houses,

Liz Christensen:   28:31
what social media engagement are you trying to do?

Karl Beckstrand:   28:35
So I do Facebook a lot. There are groups that Aiken that are targeted. For example, there's a Facebook group for people who like to read or westerns. My one and only novel is a Western, so I post about that on that Facebook page, or if there's a group about astronomy. I pushed my astronomy picture book on that one, and then I used Linked In and Instagram Twitter. I'll tell you that I'm a lot more active on social media than I normally would be. My personality isn't that I want to be out there getting attention,

Liz Christensen:   29:05
not that kind of extra very right.

Karl Beckstrand:   29:07
But because I have to market my books. I am on social media a lot more than I would normally.

Liz Christensen:   29:12
I would imagine you're not meeting a lot of the people who buy your books directly. So how are you getting emails and what do you do with, um,

Karl Beckstrand:   29:20
I know I was talking to a coach and a mentor in Boise this past week on this trip, and he says that he has been studying reaching out to prospects or potential clients and that the trend is now text messaging is the best way to reach them. And I said No, it's e mail. He said, No email is dead. And so we had a little disagreement until I realized that his target audience is individuals who will want coaching and mentoring. They would want to receive messages from him via text. But my target is audiences librarians. And so if they're gonna be getting information about new books, is gonna be still evil.

Liz Christensen:   29:59
Yeah, they're sitting at a computer for the vast majority of their day, not on the phone,

Karl Beckstrand:   30:04
right. So I have given away books to people who will give me their email address. We'll give him a free e book on my Web site, you can sign up to be a beta reader.

Liz Christensen:   30:13
Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that.

Karl Beckstrand:   30:15
Yeah. So in exchange for your email address, I will give you advanced copies of new books that are coming out, at least the book version. Or they get advance notice of new titles, that air coming, things like that.

Liz Christensen:   30:27
And is that I mean, you're obviously not looking at those people for the same information I heard. The same feedback is an editor. So what are you hoping to get from a beta reader?

Karl Beckstrand:   30:37
I firmly believe in paying an editor. Always, Even if it's a short Children's book, you should always pay a professional editor because they are going to catch stuff that if you've looked at this page 12 times,

Liz Christensen:   30:49
Yeah, you're lying to me. Oh,

Karl Beckstrand:   30:51
you're not gonna catch some errors. And so a professional editor will catch those things, and it's not that expensive. But then on top of that, you should also have beta readers. I recommend 20.

Liz Christensen:   31:00
That's a lot of reading

Karl Beckstrand:   31:01
is a lot. So yeah, you've got your mom who will always say it's great and perfect Then you've got friends and family and acquaintances that other authors who will give you more unbiased feedback. There's a hole in the plot or this doesn't make sense or give you information you need. And you don't always have to take what they say and make changes because you're in charge. It's your book.

Liz Christensen:   31:22
Are you going to roughly the same 20 people every time?

Karl Beckstrand:   31:25
No. But I'll tell you where you can find beta readers, and that is the League of Utah writers, where I met my first publisher.

Liz Christensen:   31:31
Yeah,

Karl Beckstrand:   31:32
and you know, you go to their meetings and there's they're very informative. They always have someone speaking about marketing or a certain genre or things you want to know about setting up a business. And then on top of that, you're rubbing shoulders with people who are at all levels of publishing some who have been. I mean, there's a gal in Millcreek who's been on the Today show maybe hundreds of times promoting books I can't remember, but just written a lot and done a lot of promoting. So she knows a lot not just about publishing a marketing, but she knows a lot of people she knows agents and editors and publishers and media contacts. And so if you go to this group, you're going to find somebody who has experience in all these things and then beta readers, they'll also, you know, if you read my manuscript, I'll read yours and they'll give each other feedback.

Liz Christensen:   32:16
Is that a little bit easier for you? Because the number of words like your word count is less than a year to get better readers,

Karl Beckstrand:   32:23
you would think. But here's the problem. In fact, there are websites and Facebook groups where people will exchange manuscript. But it's actually harder for me sometimes because people will say, Here's my 500 page novel. All read your 24 page picture book and give you feedback. If you read my novel,

Liz Christensen:   32:41
okay, yeah,

Karl Beckstrand:   32:45
that's what I sometimes do. You read this number of books and I'll read your novel.

Liz Christensen:   32:49
You make the leak of Utah writers sound like a close knit community. Is that because you're extroverted and get it not running? Or is it is it? It is

Karl Beckstrand:   32:58
a great bunch of people, it really is, and they're well established. There are other writers groups. In fact, I belong to two other writers groups will have belonged to others, so there's lots of other options out there. But legal use our writers is so big, and it is old enough that they have chapters all over the state, and then they have an annual convention or regular semiannual. Maybe they do twice a year. So we're everybody gathers and they have national speakers come and teach. Yeah, they're local chapter meetings, monthly meetings. You can get 5 to 25 people in attendance. And, yeah, there's going to be somebody who's gonna be asking you questions because they're brand new. But then there's gonna be also somebody who has a great agent and is in your genre, and maybe we'll pass on your manuscript to that agent. That's a really good thing.

Liz Christensen:   33:38
Do you need a literary agent? If you're you're author and your self publishing,

Karl Beckstrand:   33:42
you don't If you're if you're going to go the traditional route you do. Typically, you'll want an agent because publishers to even look at your manuscript now they wanna have a through an agent.

Liz Christensen:   33:53
So if I if I'm going to do this and I was going to go the traditional route. I probably still need a couple of titles. And then I reach out to a literary agent first in the literary agent takes care of that step of getting me into what print? The editors printed houses and distributors.

Karl Beckstrand:   34:12
Publishers. Yeah,

Liz Christensen:   34:13
okay, because it's the traditional route is publishers. And that's altogether the printing and the editing and the distributing.

Karl Beckstrand:   34:18
OK, I'm the publisher handles all that. Okay, but the agent is the one gets you in the door. There's a technique for getting an agent, and that is fine books in your genre. Find out who the agent was, the represented that author contact that agent.

Liz Christensen:   34:32
And this is just a Google exercise. Yeah, Okay,

Karl Beckstrand:   34:34
so you want to be a genre specific find one who's had success and hopefully isn't too busy, you know, and then they can approach publishers. Now there's two other things that people sometimes get mixed up with agents, and that one is a publicist who promotes your book.

Liz Christensen:   34:50
Yeah, they're just doing the marketing stuff on the other end, right?

Karl Beckstrand:   34:53
Right, And that's either with a big publisher or self publishing. You can have a publicist okay, because there's make appointments for media interviews. They'll get your books out to where they need to be.

Liz Christensen:   35:03
Maybe the most off putting part of this process for an introvert would be the marketing parts. You could say, OK, you can still like self publish and do the print on demand with Amazon. All those things you might want to just have a publicist. Okay, that makes sense.

Karl Beckstrand:   35:16
And then the other one is a foreign agent in a foreign agent is the one who represents your publishing rights, too Entities around the world so you could have a publisher. Or you could be self published either way and then sell your rights to another publisher in another country.

Liz Christensen:   35:31
And then bad bananas is in China,

Karl Beckstrand:   35:34
right? So typically, the big New York publishing houses want to control of that worldwide, but they don't always have presence in other countries. So if you have a foreign rights agent, then they can promote your manuscript to your books in other countries and then get you money for the public in exchange for the publishing rights in that country. Because I'm in the most competitive genre on the planet,

Liz Christensen:   35:55
a Children's book being competitive is it just because

Karl Beckstrand:   35:58
everybody wants to write one

Liz Christensen:   36:00
because we think they're easy cause they're shorter and there's pictures probably Okay,

Karl Beckstrand:   36:05
but what's funny is I'll be out riding events or just something well, here that I'm an author and they'll say, Oh, I've always wanted to write a Children's book and I'll say, Really tell me your idea and many times they'll say, I don't have one

Liz Christensen:   36:17
They just want to do it for the

Karl Beckstrand:   36:18
to have done it. And so in that situation, I know they're not really a writer because, at least for me, I'm hounded by story. Ideas have so many story ideas. I don't have time to write them all because it's so competitive. I have to find ways to stand out. One of them is bilingual. One of them is multicultural. I do stem books, you know, science, technology, engineering and math. Always try to be funny. I always try to have a twist all these different ways. I have to make my book unique because there are all these other people putting Children's books out every day.

Liz Christensen:   36:50
That sounds like a pretty good combination of unique things, though.

Karl Beckstrand:   36:53
Thanks how you invited to your listeners to be beta readers because I always like input. You know, feedback on what's in the works,

Liz Christensen:   37:02
and we do that by going to what website

Karl Beckstrand:   37:04
for me. Oh books dot com, p r e m io books dot com

Liz Christensen:   37:07
And then I remember seeing it. But do I stood? I scroll down to get to it or was it a menu?

Karl Beckstrand:   37:12
I think it's on the home page of the bottom, and it's also, I think, on the contact. Paige,

Liz Christensen:   37:16
would you read one more story for us? But you'll have to listen through to the end of the episode to hear it. Carl is going to read one of his books in Spanish. It's a charming story about a frightened dog who's left home alone. Thank you to my guest, Karl Beck Strand. Thank you so much, Karl, from talking to me about your books today.

Karl Beckstrand:   37:31
Thank you for having me

Liz Christensen:   37:33
If you'd like to find Carl or Premio books on social media.

Karl Beckstrand:   37:36
Oh, sure, I'm on Facebook. You confined me as an author under Carl Baxter and Karl with a K, or you can also find on Facebook multicultural Children's books by Premium Publishing and then Twitter is premium books or Karl Beck Strand, and then Instagram is Karl Beck. Strand Interest is premium books. LinkedIn is Karl Beck. Strand

Liz Christensen:   38:00
in the telling, is excited to be back with its second season with plans to release two radio play miniseries and to host a live show for its one year anniversary. You can find out more about in the telling at Lizzie. Lizzie Liz dot com Theme music by Gordon Venus in the Telling is hosted and produced by me, Liz Christiansen. Thanks for listening.

Karl Beckstrand:   38:22
This one's called Sounds in the House or for real. Listen like I said, a scooter. So neo realism like Assad, it's a It's a little dog that's been left at home alone when she revealed as La Puerta apostles and obese. So when Regina does this task alone, Los Palos a malevolent in Baltimore, his hair is being raised by his fear of Rollo Ascetic talk. When a bully, a goby, a contra la Ventana hears the clock ticking and the moth tapping against the window. L. Kelly Until order. Why would he say that the hot water heater goes that songs on the piano always Zagato

Liz Christensen:   39:00
think cat jumping on the piano. Yeah,

Karl Beckstrand:   39:03
that's Kanye's human Eldridge Referee Carol or Zoom, but lost our bill is Regina and La Brisa trees creaking the breeze bump buh plopping ankle chorizo. Really? Daschle. Something's on the roof. Calif. Actor Brahma con vida. He has a growing year out. Vero. The water heater roars to life and makes the dog round one with a Puerto says Yeah, they go. Bay Door slams Hi again and I've got a Someone's in the garage. Serious around one day overnight fantasma Oh number marvel Kikkoman Barrows into pastel jewelry. A star in hell, Coral or trusted bourey estar aqui en la

Liz Christensen:   39:41
casa. There's footsteps coming down the hallway there in the house, and there's this adorable picture of the dog hiding under his dish bowl. And there's a super scary shadow on the wall around the corner.

Karl Beckstrand:   39:51
Oh, kiss ass and write on. Or maybe it's just a mouse. Yo, creo severity as their salary is to make it a real afra. Saz agreed today. So he says, I think I know just what to do. I'll throw it on the covers and yell Boo Justus! He does that Hizzoner, huh? Little boy comes into the house because the dog is yelling. Boo! The kid is going.

Liz Christensen:   40:14
Oh, I like that very much. Perfect. Thank you so much.

Karl Beckstrand:   40:17
Thank you for having me.