Steven Scaffidi - author Hey Papa Dude children’s books. 

If’ you’ve ever considered writing a children’s book, this blog post and episode of the Close The Deal .com Podcast is for you. You may be wondering how hard is it to publish a children's book?

Candidly , you don’t need a literary agent! You don’t need to follow the traditional route.  You’ll see…

As you start your own book, Steve’s guidance will help you save a lot of time and money. That’s the boring but necessary part.   Considering you’re becoming a children’s book author, Steve’s unique background as a former filmmaker fuels his creativity which will inspire you and spark your imagination. 

Publishing your first book can be very rewarding. Children’s book writers get the bonus of tapping into a special kind of joy! 

Steve’s “why” perhaps is the most important thing. It may help explain what’s driven him to write ten books in two years.  It may even help you discover your why. 

Problem Steve Solves – publishing your first book – he shares the advice Anne Rice gave him.

This journey with Steve serves as a step-by-step book publishing guide covering the following topics:

• self publishing vs. traditional publishing houses (which is better to jumpstart your publishing process)
• Creating memorable characters – (your main character and a sidekick too)
• Knowing your target audience
• Finding a professional illustrator
• Submission guidelines on copywriting – and saving money doing that yourself
• What kind of book (hard cover vs soft cover)
• A simple marketing plan 
• Overcoming fear

Connect with Steve

Website: www.heypapadude.com

Social Media

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenscaffidi/

https://www.facebook.com/heypapadude

Products We ❤️

Athletic Greens (AG1)

Hey Papa Dude Series

Show Notes with Steven Scaffidi

[00:00:00] Steve: before you break the rules, you gotta know the rules. Know what your product's going to cost, know what you can sell it for. If you do wholesale, retail, understand your business model.

If you print it for five, you want to sell it for…

Ewell: Well, that is Steve Scaffidi and he is a filmmaker turned a book author who started his first book of a series of books at the end of 2019 before the world started falling apart. Now he has 10 books in the series. How is that even possible? What he's talking about just a second ago was about setting the price of his book, setting the price of a product or a service, and how important that is.

Now you're listening to the Close The Deal.Com Podcast. I'm your host, Ewell Smith. Now Steve is going to take you on quite a journey. This is an entertaining journey, to say the least, but on a very serious note, the problem he solves comes at the advice of a very old friend of his in her name was Anne Rice.

Now let's begin the show. Steve, I want to welcome you to CloseTheDeal.com. My first question is, where are you today? 

[00:01:20] Steve: Well, I'm at my house. I live in Kenner, Louisiana, which is right outside New Orleans. I'm hanging out today. I'm kind of my wife's personal assistant while she's taking care of the grandbaby, so I could kind of do what I want to do. I'm at a stage in my career where I don't have a nine to five. I don't have anybody to answer to except for Anna, so I'm good, man.

Ewell And I know she keeps you in line. And you, and you help her. 

Yes she does. She does. Man.

Ewell: So, my first question is, what are you grateful for today?

Steve: I'm excited every. What gets me out of bed in the morning is the fact that I can be creative. The process of being just creative and able to write stories or come up with fresh ideas and head to my favorite place, the coffee shop, cuz I don't have an office anymore. I have no employees anymore and I'm.

I'm not trying to get stuff done. I'm kind of like a sponge and I'm wide open for people coming to me and opening up doors, but I'm not pushing anymore, and believe it or not, it works when you don't try so hard and you're just available for stuff to happen, you know, you just wide open. Things happen, man.

It's crazy.

Steve on going the “traditional route” to get a book deal for your first children’s book

Ewell: That's the creative process a lot of times. All right, speaking of creative process, I ask entrepreneurs, what's the problem that they solve and they come up with a solution. I don't know if you saw a problem in the market or not with what you do as a book author, but talk about if it is a problem.

What did you see missing in the marketplace? 

[00:02:59] Steve: Well, there is a problem and I'll address that in a second. What I do is and we'll just stick to my children's books becuase I do a lot of things, but my Papa Dude books, I mean, it's off the charts, how much I enjoy doing it. I love it. It's crazy how it began, but I did see a problem because

Self-published authors vs. traditional publishers

(did you know Anne Rice self-published books?)

I've written other books and I was published by a major publisher and all of this. And a dear friend of mine who passed away not too long ago, Anne Rice, she told me a while back, several years ago, she said, Steve, self-publish. And she told me she couldn't even get published because she was writing Christian books at the time and everybody was like, no, no, we don't want your Christian books.

We want the vampire books. And she just started, she wanted to do it, you know, she could do whatever she wanted. So, she decided to write Christian books and she did, and she self-published. So, my recommendation to anybody that once the writer has an. Do it yourself, and then if you know, one of the big publishers recognizes your work and makes you a million dollar offer, then take it.

But in the meantime, don't sit on the sidelines hoping for somebody to pick you up. Do it. Get your work out there and just get it done. 

Steve joins children’s book authors

[00:04:19] Ewell: So, your solution was for your first time self-publishing, was to write the Papa Dude series. Talk about that and, and why, why children's book versus, I mean, you're, you're a filmmaker, you make a lot of films over the years and why children's books and you're an author, you've written plays and everything.

Why writing children's books?

[00:04:43] Steve: well, it's a great time, it's a great ride. It's a great story. It actually started with the pandemic, so right before the pandemic hit,  I got ill, I mean, I might have had Covid before Covid was known about, I don't know. I was in the hospital for literally a week. I was in intensive care for a few days.

I was sick and Anna brought me to the hospital. They checked me in and this was October. Covid. Nobody was talking about Covid until January, February, maybe even March. That's when Covid really, that's when everything shut down in March. I was in the hospital in October and then I was in Guatemala in November and we, we had planned this trip and I was fine.

Anna almost wanted to cancel and I said, no, no, no, we're going. While I was in Guatemala. I'm thinking, looking at the volcanoes, I got my family. I said to myself, okay, I just had this episode. I wasn't, you know, I was in the hospital outate commission for a couple of weeks. Anna wants me to slow down.

I'm, I'm one step from retirement kind of thing. I'm, you know, put, I'm ready to go on social security. Maybe next, the following year I just took Social Security, so now you know I'm official. Yeah. I'm, I'm on a fixed income. It's pitiful, but I'm, I'm, I don't feel old, but everybody thinks I'm old. But anyway, said while, while I was in  Guatemala, that's where the Papa Dude things started to happen.

I didn't have the idea; I had the seed of an idea.. So, my recommendation to anybody out there, let the idea come to you like I'm, I'm telling you, it's like plant a little seed and watering that seed and just it'll, it, I promise you guarantee it's going to happen. So, I'm in hu, I'm in Guatemala. I'm like, I got this idea, but I'm not sure what the idea actually is.

I didn't even know if it was going to be a book. I just knew I wanted to tell stories. Maybe it's a film, maybe, who knows? I don't know. It had nothing to do with kids at that moment. I get back home, I got this idea, that's not an idea yet, and I literally sat in my backyard. The weather was good for a couple of days, looking up at the trees and all of a sudden it hit me and I had my little notebook there.

I'm famous for take. I like taking notes the old fashioned way, and I wrote down Papa. My dad was the original papa dude. Man, I missed that guy. He's been gone for 30 years. But his life was an, was a phenomenal life. He played pro baseball. He was the number one tire salesman in the country. But everybody loved this guy.

And so, I had the idea, Papa Dude, I got my two grand babies, Penelope and Cecilia, and I'm. And then all of a sudden the magic hit when I came up with, Hey Papa, dude. So, I wrote that down and, Hey Papa Dude is all about this guy who's inspired by my dad, who knows a little bit about everything. And you know, you, you, your dad, or you could go back and look at your grandpa when you were a kid.

Didn't you always think that your dad or your grandpa or whoever it was, knew a little bit about everything? Like they were geniuses, right? So, Papa Dude doesn't have to be a genius. He just knows a little bit about everything. Boy, that, that, once I had that concept in place, then things started to really roll.

So, then I said, okay, I'm going to write a book. It's going to be a, it started with one book Hey, Papa Dude. Well, if you think somebody's a genius or you think they know a little bit about everything, what are you going to do? You want to ask 'em questions, right? So, the book is, Hey, Papa Dude. And then there's a question under it.

Finding your topic

And the question, my first book, I tend to go for the lowest hanging fruit. Like, okay, I'm going to write a book. What's the topic? I gotta pick a topic. Everybody loves, everybody loves dogs. I mean, come on, you can't go wrong with dogs, right? So, Hey, Papa Dude, Why are we crazy about dogs?

[00:09:00] Ewell: And this a children's book. This is a children's you, knew this was going to be children's book.

Steve: I knew right there.

Identifying your target market

Well, when I came up with Papa Dude, I knew it was going to be kids. So, first of all, you identify who's your market. Okay? My market's going to be people that love kids, people that have kids. Moms, right? Dads too. But moms love to buy. So, children's books. Hey, Papa Dude. Why are we crazy about dogs? Then the first thing I do is I'm a visual guy, so I gotta come up with a visual.

I designed the book cover before I wrote the words first word in the book. Hey, Papa Dude, why are we crazy about dogs? I designed the cover, bang, I'm off and running. The next thing you know, I just started writing a story. Two weeks later, I had my first draft of the book. 

What should your printed book look like? 

The key to making that happen. You gotta know what children's books look like. What do they smell like? What, what do I do? I go down to Barnes and Nobles, I go in the kids’ section, I, I peruse through all the books, right? I want to know what, what does my book look? Eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper. Turned it sideways. Gotta be horizontal, right? That's me. You, I could have done vertical.

I decided to do horizontal, so I, I already had the book size. What's the page count? I did little research. Google. What's the average page count of a kid’s book. Boom, boom, boom. 32 pages done inside cover. I know what it looks like. I had that book locked and loaded in about two, three. Done on my computer, my little, my old HP laptop.

Nothing fancy.

Ewell: Did you do the illustrations or how did you, so you got the copy. , what about the illustrations? How did that happen?

[00:10:54] Steve: I am a master of, I'm good at layout. I'm pretty good at the illustration itself, but I'm really good at layout. So, what I did at. I just found pictures, generic stuff off the internet, cut and pasted and kind of template, right. Put template stuff in there. So, I had my story, okay, inside front cover, what does it look like?

Okay, great. A couple of dogs, whatever I, you know, that kind of thing. Then I know, okay, you gotta have the page with the copyright and all of that stuff. So, I'm, I'm putting all this stuff in to where I can see what the book looks like on my computer, and then I said, okay, how am I going to tell the story? And then it is like, okay, I'm going to just go through a bunch of dogs.

So give me some dogs, German Shepherd, Labrador, Retriever, French poodle, boom, boom, boom. I knew the page count, so I knew how many dogs I needed to go through. Okay? Each page was going to be dedicated to one particular dog. Then at the end, I'll wrap the whole story together. So, the story is, why are we crazy about dogs?

That's the question at the beginning of the book and at the end of the book, I answer it.

[00:12:11] Ewell: So, the que but the go real quick. I love that now. But the person answering it is papa dude. Now you had that illustrated because you had and why is Papa Dude a chef? For those listening, when you see the books, Papa Dude is a chef. Why a chef?

Steve: Because my dad, all the great things he did, baseball player, everything else, what he was most known for at the end of his life especially was he loved the cook. My dad made the best pasta sauce, meatballs, veal parmesan. 

Ewell: Yeah.

Steve: and all the great chefs from New Orleans, and this is back in the sixties and seventies when I was a kid, came to my house and they begged my dad.

My dad could have been an executive chef. They would've put my dad in business. He could have owned restaurants. My dad told all those guys, he said, I love to cook. I'm only interested in cooking for 20 people. A handful of people. I don't want to own a restaurant, but hey, you guys could come to my house anytime.

We had the owner of and Manale’s and Brennan's, and they all were at my house. My dad invented the barbecue shrimp dish.

Ewell: That's iconic New Orleans dish.

Steve: That's my dad's recipe they

Ewell: now 

Steve: Okay.

Ewell: Yeah. So now you've encapsulated this personality in a chef coat, which is your dad answering the kids' questions,

Steve: Yep.

Ewell: and you had to have that illustrated though. You? How'd you find that? How'd you learn how to do that?

Steve’s biggest challenges along his journey:

Using his own illustrations would not work, finding a printing service and a publishing company

Steve: So now keep in mind Covid's going on, right? So now we're in maybe March. I got my book laid out. I got my idea. Now I need to find now this is my. , I need to find an illustrator because I can't do it. I can write, I, I can lay it out, but I can't draw the picture. So, boom, I, I need to find an illustrator, number one, number two, then it's a printer, number three, then it's a publisher.

So, you gotta create the book, you gotta print it, and then you gotta get it out there. Three things. So, first I started looking for illustrators. I called everybody I knew; I probably called you. Hey, you know anybody that can draw

[00:14:35] Ewell: You did.

Steve: I got people, I got friends, man. I've been in the film business my entire career. I know a lot of creative people do. You know, I couldn't find one person that would work with me at a rate that I could afford. I wanted somebody all in with me. So, my first thought was, okay, I'll cut the illustrator in like part of the deal, meaning you'll take ownership and papa a do with me.

Okay. Then I started thinking about that. Ah, that's not such a great idea because the, the book. The margins aren't great, we can get into that. Okay. But you gotta make it for a certain price. And I, I'm, I want to explain that because people need to know that. But anyway, I tried to find an illustrator. I was actually looking for printers at the same time.

Right. Because I, I, I'm, I'm going to do the book. I need a printer. Okay, great. I made a hundred phone calls, sent out emails. Well zero. That was doable. I can't pay an illustrator $500 a page or $10,000 for a book. I would be so far in the hole. I'd be outta business in the first book. Okay. Printers. I couldn't find a printer in New Orleans to print,

[00:15:54] Steve: cuz I know how many books I'm going to do.

500 on the first run, whatever. I can't pay 10 bucks a. Can't make money, can't get, it's impossible. And I'll explain that. My son knew that I wanted to meet all these people in coffee shops. So, first of all, Covid’s going on. So, okay, that was a problem. But he said, dad, get with it. You can do this, but you gotta do it online.

And you can find people, they might be on the other side of the planet, but they'll work with you. And you don't need to sit at a coffee shop. You don't even need to meet 'em. You don't even have to talk to 'em. I was like, you gotta be kidding me, right? I was negative first, but my son, he, he, he doesn't pull any punches.

Steve’s illustrator solution

He's like, dad, get with it. You're an idiot. All right, so finally he told me about this place called Fair not fair, fiverr. I'm like, okay, let me give it a shot. I go on the internet, do my thing. Hey, they got illustrators, you know, they, they, the actual price, like $10 in illustration. I'm like, hey, I can deal with that.

Okay, great. I found five people. I sent them a picture of my dad when he was 40 years old, maybe 50 years old, and I said, I want a character cartoon character that looks like this guy's name's Papa, dude. He's wearing a chef coat and a hat. . 

[00:17:14] Steve: Five people came back with illustrations. Four. I didn't like one I fell in love with.

Boom. That's my artist. And that's how we start.

Ewell: And then your other big challenge. I'll tell you what, let's save the challenge. Let's take a break and when we come back, we're going to talk about, we're going to dig a little deeper on the why, the challenge, and then how do you bring this product to marketplace?

Hang on Steve. We'll get the answers to those questions. 

How cool is this? I just got a free bottle of D three and K2 in the mail, courtesy of AG1. I signed up for their subscription months back, uh, but that wasn't the offer at the time. And as an end of year bonus, they just sent me a free bottle. In the mail. As a surprise, I thought that was pretty, pretty cool thing to do.

I get all my minerals, all my vitamins, my probiotics all in one serving. Super easy to do first thing in the morning out the dorm set for the day. You can get the same offer today and get the free bottle of D3 and K2 as a bonus with your first order. I've got a link in the show notes for Steve.

Find his podcast at closethedeal.com and you'll see the link for your subscription of AG1. Now let's get back to the show. 

All right, Steve, we're back. I love what you've done. Besides the creativity part that you've tapped into, clearly you've tapped into a purpose as well.

You, you're honoring your dad in a way, but you also have kind of a legacy piece to this. Is that not correct

[00:18:55] Steve: I'm honoring my dad, so every papa dude, every time I write a Papa Dude book, or I mean, I'm thinking about my dad. But those two grand babies, oh my God, Penelope and Cecilia, I mean, that's the driving force. I mean, nothing makes me happier to know when I finish this book, those two kids are getting the first copies right off the hot, off the printer, you know?

So yeah, that's what drives me, man. Those two babies, and, and by the way, their name is in every book and I'm going to whatever papa dude is right now, I've got 10. I'm soon

Ewell: 10 books at two years.

Steve: in two years, 10

Ewell: Un unreal.

Steve: so, I'm given the company to them. I, it is a legitimate company. It's under my wife's business, Nia’s Just For Kids.

My name is nowhere to be found. Ghost Rider Pictures, nowhere to be found. It’s just for kids and it's written by Papa Dude. And that was the genius. I was going to put my first draft. Hey, Papa Dude, written by Steve Scaffidi. My buddy Elton, we met at the coffee shop and I showed him my, my little template for the first book.

He said, dude, I love it, but it should be written by Papa Dude. Take your name off. And at first I got defensive like, no, wait a minute, why? You know, I went home that night, took my name off, put Papa Dude. And I was like, he was a hundred percent thousand percent right. So, I took me out of it. And it's not about me.

I don't want to bring attention. For the first time in my career, I don't want to bring attention to me. How cool is that? So, I mean, it is just been unbelievable. That's how good it's been.

[00:20:38] Ewell: All right. And that helps you get past the challenges because you got this vision in your head that's, that that's come together. The big, the other biggest challenge was you finding a printer. What was that and how'd that come.

 Steve: Well, alright, so going back to the three, you know, it's like the Trinity, illustrator, printer, publisher. How do you get it out there? Right. Those three things. Cause I can write it. So, when I started working with the illustrator, she started sending me stuff which I pay, but I own that image a hundred percent.

Like I can do whatever I want with the image. I was smart enough to tell her semi the images in transparent form, don't put the chef hat on him. I got the chef hat over. but if I decide to put a baseball cap on him, I don't need to call her. I got the baseball cap. I pop, you know, I can change stuff. So, she does, let's say 20, 30 images and I can slice and dice those images and turn it into a hundred images.

Yeah. A hundred. You know what I'm saying? I've taken Papa Dude's hat off of one image and put it on another, you know, I can do that. It's a, it's, it's beautiful. So, once I figured. Put it this way. I stopped being afraid and I said, what the hell, man? You know, this isn't rocket science. Come on. That's the problem with people.

They were afraid to try. Come on man, this, you're not putting a man on the moon. Let's get that straight. So, I got, I started, man, I started doing it, dude. I was, I was shocking myself. I was so freaking good. I was like, you gotta be getting, this is easy. Boom, boom, boom.  Got the book done. Do you know this the artist?

Because she works with, who knows how many people? Dude, she lives in Sri Lanka. I didn't even, I had to pull up Sri Lanka. Where is that? I had no clue. I know it's somewhere around Asia. That's all I knew. But she's never seen a finished book. She doesn’t care. I'm just a widget for her. Steve. Steve needs Papa Dude needs another, whatever.

Okay,

Steve on trying to find a publishing house for the best deal

Ewell: So, you gotta, you gotta get the book out then. How'd you do that?

Steve: All right,

Steve: so, I got the book. Now I start calling all the local printers, Pelican you know, all of that stuff. Nah, nah, nah, nah. I want to tell you why I've decided to print elsewhere. I can't tell you where I'm printing. Okay? Don't ask me, but it's not here. Okay? If somebody tells you it's going to cost you $10 a copy to get it printed, you know, the wholesale retail model.

Right. Okay. It's great if I can sell every book off my website because I make a hundred percent. So, the going price, you gotta know the price for your product. Right. Okay. 20 bucks. I can sell a kids' book for 20 bucks. That's the going rate. 30 bucks. Nah. You know, I mean, come on. 20 bucks is a decent price for a book.

You gotta do hard cover, you gotta do thick pages so they're expensive to print.

If somebody's quoting you $10 a copy and you want to sell it to the store, the kid's store down the block and then they're going to sell it to the public. Because I'm in 60 stores right now. You the, the business model is the store's going to buy it for X and then they're going to double the price and sell it to the consumer.

That's how it. Well, if I'm getting a book for 10 and you are the, you are the store and not sell it to you for 20, that means you're going to sell it for 40. I don't think, look as good as Papa Dude is, 40 bucks is outta range. I know the price. I gotta get the, the cost for the book to $5 or less, the cheapest price.

I called everybody I search. $9, maybe $8 a book. You got a factor in shipping too.

Ewell: and you can't share… you can't share

Steve: I can't share those. I can't tell you. All right, so I got, I, I found me a printer. Five bucks, a copy that includes shipping back to me. Actually, it's closer to four

Ewell: Okay.

[00:25:06] Steve: shipping. I got it done. I'm retailing.

I'm wholesaling. My books for 10 retailing for. So, I got that I'm in 60 stores plus and I'm on the internet now.

Ewell: so, tell me, yeah. Transition a little bit. How do you, how are you, I mean, you got 60 stores. How did you get 60 stores and then how did you, how else are you getting your books out there? I'm assuming you got sales on the et cetera. Yeah.

Steve gets frustrated with the publishing industry

Steve: So now we're going to transition to publishing cuz that's what publishing is. Getting your book out there. Okay. I call publisher. Hey, I got Papa Dude. You even gave me the name of a publisher. That guy. Hey, Steve, nice to talking to you, but ah, we ain't Remember that? Okay. All right. We won't mention any names, but you know who I'm talking about.

Ewell: Mm.

Steve: I'm like, I don't need a publisher. Ann Rice told me, Steve, publish your own stuff. Okay, great. I'll listen to Ann. She's, she's up there right now, but I'll, 

Steve on copywriting his book

I'm, I'll listen every now and then I do listen. I said, all publishing is is you gotta do your due diligence. Copyright, get the library, a congress little number.

Do you know a local guy? Supposedly a friend of mine went to charge me $5,000. Steve, I could do that for you. Five grand. I'll get the copyright and the library of congress number, dude, that cost me 50 bucks, all in 50. He wanted to charge me 5,000. I said, thanks, but no thanks. He's not my friend anymore, by the way.

So, I, I started publishing. Anna is had, we had a kids' store. She was in the kids' business. She's now on the wholesale side of the kids' business, so she's got store contacts. She started opening up the doors. We get in 60 plus stores. Boom. Done. So now, and then I got my online store set up. So, if we sell to the store, 10 bucks a copy.

Now I do have a minimum. Hey, buy a dozen, you know, cuz I got Charlie Crab in there, so a dozen crabs.

A great way to add humor to your children’s books

[00:27:13] Ewell: Now what is Charlie Crab so people know?

Steve: Well Charlie Crabb is Papa Dude's side kit. So, when I first wrote the book, it was all Papa Dude with the dogs. And I said, man, I need some comic relief here cuz Papa Dude's educational so he can be funny, but he's gotta be, you know, on point.

I said I'm going to create a goofball. Kind of modeled after me and I said, this guy could say anything anytime, anywhere. And I came up with this crab and you even make fun of him becuase he's a red crab, but he looks way better red than blue,

Ewell: you cook…

Steve: a country man. But he's alive and well in Papa Dude's story. But Charlie Crab and he's the sidekick.

So, after I've got the whole book written, I. On every page. Where can Charlie be? You can only have a crab pose so many ways, right? I mean, he's got a couple of claws and some legs. What could a crab do? Well, I put him in different places and I say, what would Charlie say to this? Well, what would I say if my dad was alive and he was trying to teach me I’d, I'd be.

Going crazy. And that's, and I, I have a cartoon bubble for Charlie Crab. So, he talks on every page. It's just do it yourself, man. You gotta, before you break the rules, you gotta know the rules. Know what your product's going to cost, know what you can sell it for. If you do wholesale, retail, understand that business model.

If you print it for five, you want to sell it for 10 and they're going to sell it for 20, that works. But if you're printing for, I'm going to have to sell it to you for 11 cause 22 you might be able to get, I'm making a buck a book. I better be selling a million books, you know?

Ewell: So, so the marketing is really the, the, the children's stores, and you keep developing that network. You've got your online presence. We'll ask for that website, web link in a minute. Are there any other channels you're trying to go into to get

the 

[00:29:17] Steve: Yeah, 

Ewell: about your 

Steve: yeah what… 

[00:29:19] Ewell: might, what might that be Steve: Well, first of all, I want to drive more traffic to the website. That's my first goal, and that's a challenge. Okay? There's a company out there called Fair. Stores buy wholesale can purchase products wholesale from Fair. You can't buy from Fair unless you have a retail. Okay, so I just put the books on Fair because Anna wanted me to do it.

And Fair's a great, hey, I, I haven't sold one book yet through Fair. I just started, but it seems like a great opportunity and it's really popular for stores to buy it through. Fair cuz some stores may not know, Hey, who's this Steve's Scaffidi guy? But they trust Fair, so they buy it through Fair. Fair takes a little.

Then they contact me and say, hey man, Joe's store up in Timbuktu two, just ordered two dozen books. I get paid, I  I ship 'em. It works if I can, well, let's see if I sell any books that way. So that's, that's one option. Haven't done it yet. People keep telling me, try it. Okay, great. Facebook, you know, I, I blast it.

Keeping the balance between online, online retailers and children’s brick and mortar stores

My biggest challenge now is driving the online sales, but I don't want to, I don't want to screw up the deal with the stores, so I gotta be careful. I, I still promote my stores, so I want to have a good relationship with the stores, but you can't undercut the stores. In other words, if a store is selling your book for 20, you don't want to be selling it for 15 and making a big deal about it, then you upset the stores that you're doing business with.

So, you gotta be careful.

[00:31:08] Ewell: Sure. Okay. Last question. And this is for somebody who's thinking about writing their first book and let's, let's say, let's say it is a children's book. So, let's stick to the niche of children's book. What would you, if you had to boil it down to one, maybe two things you would tell somebody to do, might those two things be getting?

Steve: Okay.

Ewell: To get them, to get them off the block, the starting

Steve: It's impossible to tell 'em two things, but I can tell 'em five. First step, number one, you gotta have a great...

Ewell: shocking. Go ahead. Number one,

Steve: You gotta have a great story, okay? So, make sure, and you gotta be passionate about it. You gotta love it. If you're not in love with your story, what makes you think I'm going to be in love with it?

Right? So come on, you gotta love it. You gotta do, okay, number one. Number two, self-publish. Do it yourself. Set up a website to promote your stuff. Copyright is easy. Once you write the book, and obviously you gotta illustrate, you gotta find a printer. I can't tell you my sources, but I'm telling you, you can do it.

Think outside the box. Once you get the book made, you can publish it. Library or Congress, just go to the library or Congress website. It's free. You type in the information that you; you get a number back done. Don't pay somebody a thousand bucks to do it for you, please. So, copyright Library of Congress, once you have it, you start selling it.

What if you don’t have family members in the children’s retail business?

You're a publisher, that's it. You want to find stores, find somebody, or you can knock on the stores yourself. Just do it. The printer is the main chink in the. You know, you gotta, you gotta do your homework. You gotta work with a printer that's going to give you great quality. By the way, children's books gotta be hardcover, can't be paperback.

Like your book gotta be hardcover, gotta be thick pages. Go to Barnes and Nobles. Go to the kid’s section. Look at the books. Imagine the size before you start. What does it look like? I, I, I had a book sitting right next to me. I knew what my book was going to.

Steve on overcoming fear

Ewell: Right. One more question to help somebody get off the start, and I'm like, what about fear? Cause that holds so many people back. What about fear?

Steve: You know what fear is? Lack of education. Meaning you didn't do your homework when once you do your homework, and man, look, trust me, it's not that hard once, there's nothing to be afraid about.

Steve: What's, what's the worst that can happen?

Ewell: That's right.

Steve: I treat, listen, I treat my writing just like a football game. I might get sacked.

I might fumble. I'm getting off the deck and I'm going to throw that touchdown next. I don't be afraid, just do it.

[00:34:06] Ewell: There you go. We’ll let, let's leave it there. Now I want to, okay. How can people, this has been fun, Steve. How can people find. You, your book, how if they want ask you questions, can they ask you.

Steve: Yeah. And you know, I'm, I'm expecting a hundred sales off of this gig today. right. Right.

Ewell: Is like,

Steve: You get a cut; you get your cut. You dirty dog. You man, you're greedy just like the rest. No, ma. Okay. You can find me Heypapadude.com, Heypapadude.com. So, heypapadude.com. I got some great stories up there.

I got a little, you know, you'll get a kick out of it. But yeah, you can get my books there. I've got a list of all the stores we are in now.

Ewell: how many stores are you in right now again?

Steve: I think we're in a little bit over 60.

Ewell: Yeah. That's awesome.

[00:35:00] Steve: Yeah. 

Ewell: That's 

Steve: And,

Ewell: grassroots. That's all grassroots. I think there's a lot to be learned from..

Steve: everything's great. Dude. Oprah Winfrey has not endorsed me yet. Okay. I'm, I'm, I'm hoping for that, but, you know, I'm not there yet.

I, did get it, I did get it to the local weather guy at WVUE the other day, so, hey, that's my, you know, that's my start.

Ewell: Well, alright, I want to encourage everybody to go visit. Heypapa dude.com. Steve, I want to thank you. This has been, A fun journey. It's been a fun journey for me personally watching you develop this series the past couple years. The fact that you got 10 books going on, 11 books, you're working on the 11th one right now.

Folks go buy his books if you've got children. These books are wonderful. If you want to understand how to do it, give Steve a call. Steve, thank you very much. It's

Steve: Thank you, brother. Good to be with you.

Ewell: All right, buddy. I appreciate you. 

Steve: bye. 

[00:35:53] Ewell: To borrow a phrase from the filmmaker, Steve Scaffidi, that is a wrap to the closethedeal.com podcast. Of course, I want to thank you again for spending your time, share this podcast with your friends, and if you have that creative itch, look, scratch that itch. Don't let it sit there forever. One day you're going to look back and you say, gosh, I didn't do it.

He just, he just did it in a big way. He came out with one book and turned around and did nine more on top of that. That's crazy. Now they're children's books. But once he laid the groundwork, he knew exactly what to do and the next nine, and now he's in the marketplace with 60 stores. That's, that's awesome.

I hope you enjoyed the show. Share this episode with. And make this a great day