Children's Book Mastery Summit INCOMING!

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Hi, welcome to the Writing Momentum Podcast.

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I'm Gena Maselli, and I'm here with my husband Christopher Maselli.

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Woo hoo!

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And we have a special guest today.

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We do!

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Yes, Karen Ferreria is here with us.

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She is a professional book illustrator, bestselling author, and award-winning

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creative director, but she's also the founder and the director of the

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Children's Book Mastery Summit, and we are so excited to talk to her today.

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Karen, welcome!.

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We're so glad you're here.

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Thank you for having me back I'm so happy to be here.

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Yes, we're just thrilled to have you.

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We have loved being part of the Children's Book Mastery Summit.

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And I'm wondering, tell us a little bit about it.

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What is that today?

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So the Children's Book Mastery Summit is a summit I actually started in

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2020, so this is the fourth year.

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And really what it is I get together experts, leaders, bestselling

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authors in the children's book industry and the publishing industry.

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And interview all of them around 25 to 30 experts every time.

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This year it's about 30.

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And interview all of them about different topics.

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Anything from how do you get writing to editing, publishing, illustrations,

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marketing, just all of that stuff.

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And people can attend for free or pay what they want.

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And the whole point is that, as an author, there's just so much to know.

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So this is a way to just really help people at least get a foundation in place.

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And not flounder around.

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Yeah.

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There are so many writers' conferences around the world

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and then there's online summits.

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But what I love about what you've put together here is that it's

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completely focused on children's books.

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So if you're interested in children's book writing, this is like the one stop shop.

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And every year that you do this, like you said you have dozens of people

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come and speak and you're really getting into the latest information

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about writing for children, and that's super important, especially when it

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comes to marketing and selling your book, because that's all based on

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technology, which changes so fast, right?

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It's hard to even keep up with it, but by hearing the latest things to do, you can

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always just be on the edge, I think, a little bit, but then it also has some of

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those, a lot of those sessions that can help you just become a better writer and

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just hone your craft, that kind of thing.

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You have the things that are always evergreen and stay the same, right?

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And then you absolutely have new things.

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AI is all the rage right now for instance.

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So you have to stay abreast as well.

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And even writing craft changes, picture books now aren't the

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same as they were 10 years ago, so you have to be aware of that.

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Yeah, and you can watch online at your convenience, which is pretty cool.

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We always like that.

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And then I know you can get the videos for later, but one thing you said

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that I just think is just really neat that I like that you offer is the fact

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that you have a kind of pay what you want model for the general sessions.

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So if you watch the session in the first, what is it, 48 hours, you can

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pay what you want, what you're able to.

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So if you can pay a lot, you can pay a lot.

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If you're like, you know what times are tough for me right now,

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I can afford a $20 or $40 for this.

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You can do that, right?

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And still get in on those sessions in those first 48 hours, right?

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So the way it works, we've always had it only free.

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And then you get the free or the premium pass or the all access pass, where with

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the free, you can attend all the sessions.

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Like on Monday, about five sessions will go live and you can attain those

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for 48 hours and then we lock them away and Tuesday the next batch goes live.

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You can attend them for 48 hours, then we lock them away.

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But if you upgrade to the all access pass, you keep access to them because

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we put them on our website and it's like a course that you can access

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and there's lots of stuff with it, transcripts, action guides where you

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can follow along and actually turn the interviews into action and do things.

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And obviously we charge for that because that really, it costs a lot of money

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actually to produce all that stuff.

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And as people will sometimes say, can't we keep permanent or long term access?

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But I think what people also don't realize is that isn't free to host

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everything and all that, right?

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And there's a lot of support involved, et cetera.

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So this year we are doing the "Pay What You Want" model, which is

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the first time we are doing that.

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So they will still be the completely free, there'll still be the premium plus,

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but there's a pay what you want in the middle for those who go, you know what?

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I'm actually, as you said, I don't wanna upgrade all the way, or I don't have

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enough to upgrade all the way, but I wanna contribute $10 or $20 for all this value.

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So we thought we'd add that option.

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That is just awesome.

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I don't know if people realize how much work it takes putting on a summit like

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this, cuz I, I know I've, we've looked into it with writing momentum for doing

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some kind of summits in that, and there's, it is just a tremendous amount of work

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between all of the people you're booking, the technology you've got to get together

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to host these videos and the landing pages and the emails like do you work for this

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for months to make this happen each year?

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Yeah, it is.

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I work for months, basically it's a lot of work.

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When the Summit's on, you wake up in the morning and you have 430 emails from

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overnight, so it's quite a bit involved.

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Wow, thank you for doing it because.

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Thank you.

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We just are amazed at everything you're able to put together

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I'm curious what inspired you to do this summit?

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What brought it about and made it what it is?

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Yeah, it's a good question.

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We spoke about get your book illustrations before I chatted with you guys,

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which is my illustration company.

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And really that illustration company brought about all

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of Children's Book Mastery.

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So I don't only do the summit, I do lots of online training and so on as well.

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But it actually started with the summit and what happened was we, in doing

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book illustration because I have a team, so we illustrate a lot of books.

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So I work with a lot of authors and I saw all the time two main things.

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I saw many things, but two main things.

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Either the person would come to get the illustrations and they're investing

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all this money and time and energy into the illustrations, and then they're

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gonna publish and they're doing all these things, but you receive the

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manuscript and the manuscript isn't good.

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And I always hate that, but that's just the simplicity of it.

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And then I was like, ah, they investing but they didn't really know they

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needed to look into writing craft and learn how to write, et cetera.

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And then the other part was, for instance, someone's book would be done and they

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would be like, okay, the book's done.

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What do I do now?

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And variations thereof.

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And I was like, oh, okay.

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And then of course with that being said, you go check on their book on

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Amazon months later cuz I'm like that.

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I like to see what happened with people I worked with.

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And they have maybe one review and.

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And I really hated seeing that.

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I really felt like this person put like their heart and soul into the

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book and it's something that was important to them, and that has to be

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a real letdown, that, oh, okay nothing happened when they published it.

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So that's really where the summit came about.

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I was like, okay, people need help.

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People don't really know what they're doing.

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And it's understandable because being an author, we have so many hats, right?

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It's like you once you know how to write, you need to know how,

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oh, you have to get an editor.

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You need to know how to revise.

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You need to know how to publish.

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You need, I can go on and on.

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Yeah.

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I just realize people really do need that help.

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And I don't think it's realistic for most people to start off with

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massive investments in training, when they're still just finding their feet

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and figuring out what is this even?

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And they don't even know what they don't know, so the summit even just helps

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people to go, oh, I really didn't know, and now I know a bit more then great.

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Yeah.

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One thing I like too about online summits like this is that you can listen

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to a session time and again, right?

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You don't have to just listen to it once and be like, okay,

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I hope I caught everything.

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Because that's what happens when you attend something in person, right?

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You just have a little bit of time.

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But it's great to be able to have those videos or those audios to be able to

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say, okay, as I'm driving today, I'm just gonna listen to another one of

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these and you'll pick things up and it makes you a better author, right?

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Makes you a better writer, makes you a better entrepreneur.

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Cuz as writers, a lot of us are entrepreneurs, right?

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And that's a really good thing.

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Yeah.

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I was just going to mention, you talked about how you have received

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these manuscripts and then you realize that they weren't very good.

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We have had, probably in the last couple of weeks, we've had a couple of different

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authors that have on two sides of that.

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One, we've had the author who just got her book back from her editor

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and realized, oh, I have realized that I need to learn how to write.

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That I just really did, thought I knew how to write because I wrote this book.

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But I really have needed to brush up my skills.

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And then on the other side, we just, like you mentioned that people

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spend so much energy on the writing.

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But they have no idea how to market.

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Yeah.

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What now?

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Or how to launch a product or a book.

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And then they and we see this so many times where they get their

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book and they just launch it.

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They just publish it with no strategy at all.

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And it's, it is it's heartbreaking to see that, because then

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it just, crashes and burns.

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Yeah.

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It's a lot of work.

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It's a lot of work to just throw it out and then that's that.

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Yeah, and you tend, like when people publish a website for the first time, they

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tend to think, oh, now people are gonna go to the website cuz it's out there.

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But no one knows it's there.

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They don't know, they don't know how to get to it.

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It's the same with books.

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There are so many books in the market today.

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That even if you put your book on Amazon, it's just, it can get lost

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unless you know how to promote it and how to get it noticed.

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Exactly.

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I use that exact analogy.

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It's exactly like putting your website out there and thinking, great, I'm

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gonna get like a million visitors.

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Yeah, there may have been a day when that happened, but

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I don't remember when it was.

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No.

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Too long ago.

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So tell us about some of the people that we're gonna see on the

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Children's Book Mastery Summit.

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Yeah.

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So first of all, we are gonna see you lovely folks, Chris and Gena.

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Yeah I'm gonna be talking about children's book blunders, some of the children's

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book blunders that I've seen in the past, and that's always a fun session to do.

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I'm gonna be talking about literary techniques that people can use to

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really bring life to their writing.

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Very good.

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Yeah, so definitely tune in for those y'all.

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And what else?

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Two fantastic sessions.

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Yeah.

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And then there's so many good ones.

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It's really actually difficult to choose, but I'm just gonna pick a few kind of that

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I am excited about and that are different.

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So a picture book editor that I always work with it's a team,

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Marcy Pusey and Bethany Green, and they both on different slots.

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And Bethany is talking about how to become the author you want to be, and

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I wanted her on for that because she just has these amazing insights that's

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completely different to anyone else.

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So that's a really good one.

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And then Marcy is talking about how to create a memorable book like that

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actually evokes emotion and is memorable.

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And then I have the wonderful Heidi Fiedler, which some people may know

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she's a really quite a prolific author.

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She is talking about how to create a series worthy picture book

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character, which is quite interesting.

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And then I definitely have to mention Laura Backes because

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she's just, like amazing.

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So she is talking about tips for developing a saleable book idea.

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And then moving down, we have some fun ones like Keith Wheeler is talking about

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how to create activity books and puzzle books, which can be really great to add to

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your books or to expand your repertoire.

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And we have Eric Van Der Hope on maximizing your market reach with print

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on demand versus bulk printing, which I find it's something I think more

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authors need to be a lot more aware of what you can do in that regard.

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And then we have a few on emails.

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We have Laurie Wright, Philip Duncan, and Quinn Cummings all talking about different

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aspects of building an email list.

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Why do you send them when you have the list?

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This is something I'm super passionate about, is building your email list,

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so people should attain those.

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And then we also have two wonderful sessions from Ray Breman, Paul Brody,

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on launching your book the Right Way for Long-Term Sales and launching

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your book with a proven system.

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So there's a whole bunch.

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There's more, but I think I'll stop there, but it really is the whole

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gamut, as I said, from, how do you even just start writing all the way

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through to things like launch and Amazon ads and just marketing in general.

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Wow.

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That is amazing.

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I like, there's several of those that I think I would attend the

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conference just for that one talk.

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And yet you, when you sign up, do you get access to everything

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just for joining into the summit?

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Yeah, you can watch all the sessions.

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So all, yeah, all of them.

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Awesome.

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Okay, so if you want to watch the Children's Book Mastery Summit and

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be a part of this and get access to the downloads and the videos and all

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of that, you can go to writing.fyi.

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That's writing dot fyi slash cbm, that's Children's Book

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Mastery CBM writing.fyi/cbm.

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We'll put that in the show notes too, and that'll jump you right to the

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website where you'll be able to sign up and get access to all of this.

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And as Karen said it's.

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It literally can be free or just very low cost, all the way up to where you

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can actually have these, where you can save them and listen to them throughout

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the year, which is really valuable and we highly recommend you do that.

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If you attend a local conference, you could spend several hundreds of dollars

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just to get into the local conference.

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And this is honestly, it's, it costs far less than that, but probably

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has more speakers, more topics and maybe more takeaways because of that.

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I just applaud you for putting this on because there's so much, like Chris

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mentioned, there's from the writing to the book, to the publishing, to

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the marketing, there's just so much.

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And I think there can sometimes be an error in thinking that children's books,

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because they seem simple, that they are simple and there really is a lot to them.

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There's a lot to not only in the way that they are written and structured, but also

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just getting them published and you are definitely answering a need in the market.

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So thank you.

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Well thank you.

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Yes.

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There is a lot like we can talk about it a long time so we won't go into that.

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I do wanna mention quickly cuz I did forget.

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When people sign up for the summit, they'll also get a free

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playbook, and the playbook actually has a lot of valuable advice.

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Like I take the top advice from each speaker, and you can really use

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that to it's this really condensed powerhouse of the top things that

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each speaker says this can make the biggest change in your success.

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And then obviously the playbook also just helps you with guiding you

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through the summit, but that the main part is like the really good advice.

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So that's also something that they'll get when they sign up.

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Yeah.

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That playbook's really cool because it is it's a PDF you download, right?

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And it's got things that you can just read and fill out and all that sort of thing.

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It can take you through, it takes you through all the sessions,

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not just the ones you attend.

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This is a playbook that's got things from all the sessions in it,

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so it could be really insightful.

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All right.

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Hey, if you've enjoyed this podcast, please rate, review, subscribe, and share.

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Karen, thank you so much again for joining us.

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We look forward to joining you for the Children's Book Mastery Summit.

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And again, that url if you want to go and sign up for that is

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writing dot fyi slash cbm, and we look forward to joining you there.

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Yeah, definitely.

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All right until next time, what Gena?

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Together we have writing momentum.