Anyone else with your brain overflowing with ideas and things to do? Not sure if I should create the website, make lead magnets, finish my second book.. or make Content for social media ahhhhh! Who else feels like they have too many tabs open.. lol

First of all… THANK YOU all so much for joining VIP 💛 I’m honestly so excited to work more closely with all of you and help support you on your publishing and business journeys. I’ve already been loving connecting with everyone 1:1 and getting a deeper look into your goals, books, launches, marketing plans, and businesses! Now that you’re inside VIP, here’s how everything works 👇 📅 BOOKING YOUR 1:1 COACHING SESSIONS: You’ll receive multiple email reminders to schedule your coaching calls with me each week! You can also manually book a session anytime by: • Clicking on the “Calendar” tab (https://www.skool.com/author-growth-academy/calendar) inside this community • Selecting a date that works best for you • Click the Calendly booking link to choose your time slot You’re able to book coaching calls up to 14 days in advance 👏 And remember, your VIP membership includes up to 1 private coaching session per week if you need it, so there’s no need to worry about not being able to book. The sessions will be easy to access whenever you want support, guidance, feedback, strategy help, accountability, or encouragement! 📚 START EXPLORING THE CLASSROOM: Head over to the “Classroom” tab (https://www.skool.com/author-growth-academy/classroom), where you can begin going through the full Author Growth Roadmap program at your own pace. Inside, you’ll find modules covering things like: • Publishing on Amazon KDP • Book launches • Audience growth • Organic marketing • Email marketing • Amazon optimization • Websites …and much more! And this is only the beginning!! I’ll continue adding MORE modules and trainings every single week, so the program will only become more extensive and valuable over time. I seriously cannot wait to continue growing this community together and helping all of you build successful children’s book businesses! 🥹 Thank you again for trusting me to be part of your journey. I’m already loving getting to connect with you guys more personally through VIP. 🥰

I wanted to share a small milestone and reflection as a children’s author and creative founder. I was invited to participate in the BGV TikTok Telethon hosted by Black Girl Ventures on Thursday, June 18. The event is centered around entrepreneurship, economic opportunity, access to capital, and founder storytelling. I’m nervous, but I decided to say yes anyway. This moment made me think about how important visibility is for authors, especially when our work is connected to representation, identity, family, confidence, and helping children see themselves in stories. As I continue building Kismet Wonders and my creative catalog, including children’s books, journals, and storytelling-centered products, I’m realizing that platform-building is not separate from the work. It is part of how the work reaches the people it was created for. Sometimes we wait until everything feels perfect before we share what we’re building. But I’m learning that showing up, even while still growing, can open doors to community, opportunity, and deeper alignment. Just wanted to share this as encouragement for anyone else learning how to step into visibility while still becoming more confident in their voice and their work.

I am a detail-oriented, perfectionist person, and the extreme simplicity of the coloring page drives me nuts... Also, I work by hand, so I cannot save black and white renditions of my drawings easily. The thought of spending 2-3 hours a week making coloring pages with a dip pen and card stock was terribly daunting. My graphic designer is using Photoshop AI to render my original watercolors into coloring pages. It takes her 10 minutes to convert each one and the resulting images are beautiful. I think children will love them! That leaves me to design a few fun activities on my own, which I may have her convert to make them easier to read. She charges me $30 per hour and I think it will be entirely worth it for the number of hours saved and the number of hits to my website. I thought I would pass this on for the similarly-minded. Cheers!

I purchased a promo stack from Free Booksy, which is set to begin on June 24th. This promo stack lasts for a week. I made my book free for the maximum of 5 days, i.e. until June 29th. Should I drop the paperback on June 27th or June 29th? Is there anything magic about dropping it exactly 3 days after the Kindle download, or would the extra 2 days of "just download" help me get more attention? The book is 4th of July themed so in a way dropping the paperback earlier ensures people will get it ordered in time for the holiday.