Tips from Biz Experts: Kristen Eckstein

This week’s business expert tip comes from Kristen Eckstein, she is also in the field of writing and publishing, as a publisher and self-publishing coach at I am Published.com.
Kristen gave some encouragement to biz kids.  She realizes like many of us that kids aren’t encouraged enough to do things like become an entrepreneur.  Kids can do things for themselves and Kristen tells us how important and empowering something like writing a book can be for a kid.

Here’s what Kristen had to say:

“not only are they going to be a novelty just because they have a business and they are a kid, but if they have a book under their belt, that is even more of a “wow” factor because adults just have this block of how difficult it is to write a book and it’s really not.  The kids have none of those inhibitions at all.  They just run with it and so being able to see a kid that’s published, I would absolutely love to be a fly on the wall during “show and tell” when this 3rd grader comes in the room and says, “Here’s my new book.  It’s published.”  I don’t know if you know the novel Aragon.  It was originally self-published.  Well, the kid who wrote it was 16 years old and his parents ran their own publishing company, which is what I teach people how to do, so they were already set up in the same way that I am and they published his book for him, and I think that’s so cool because they actually have what’s call a “family press.”  They publish their family’s work, their own work.  They are self-published, but at the same time they can do their friends if they want to and it became such a big novelty and it’s actually just so cool that this 16 year old wrote this book, and it gave him a catalyst into the traditional publishing realm where they were able to take it into the movie deal and sequels.  He’s got like four books out now and he’s still in his early 20’s, so the ability is there that even though he started out self-published he could move on to other things.  Self-publishing is a little more difficult than traditional.  It’s less money up front, but it’s a little more work on the office part, but because he chose to go that route, one of his books from the first original printing (he actually used my printer) and now you can’t buy those books from that printer anymore.  Those books are going for about $2,000-$3,000 on EBay.  So they have become collector’s items almost.  I think a lot of that was due to his age.  He was young, but he had support and he was able to go out there and be an entrepreneur and then eventually got picked up by a major publisher that saw just this novelty in this kid that did something amazing.”

Here’s the rest of my interview with Kristen and You can find the Audio recording of her interview in the MEMBERS Section:

Sarah -Today we are talking with another amazing expert. Today we are talking to Kristen Eckstein who teaches you how to publish, how to write, how to get your book in front of people, how to get your story out of you based on your experience and your expertise and things that you know and I am so excited to bring her to you today because I know that each of you being in business or wanting to be in business, you will have a story if you don’t already and Kristen is your best resource for getting your story out there. So Kristen tell us a little about yourself and how you got started and what you’re most passionate about and where to find you.

Kristen – Hi, Sarah, thanks for having me on the call today. The best way to find me would be my website. It’s www.iampublished.com. That’s published past tense because we want to believe everyone out there can be published. And I actually started in the publishing industry about seven years ago when my husband and I were introduced to a Vanity Press concept and we actually helped start a Vanity Press that ended up going under because of some poor financial decisions in the management, and we broke off of that and started our own Vanity Press. We have since gotten out of the Vanity Press industry altogether because there is a lot of bad connotations there with using a press like that that takes your money and then doesn’t give you any support. It doesn’t really teach you anything, so within the past few years, I‘ve been transitioning over to being a publishing coach, where I am teaching all those Vanity Press secrets that they don’t want you to know about, like how to get the distribution and how to do the pricing and all that kind of stuff and I can also review contracts and I know which Vanity presses are giving good deals and which ones are not. And I can tell because I used to be in the industry, so you would try to keep it fair for everyone so it’s still an option for some people, but what I have chosen to do is to teach people how to become authors and do it self-publishing but do it the right way without all the expense that they used to have. You know it used to cost tens of thousands of dollars to get published, and now for about $3000 you can get a really decent book that competes on the bookstore shelf and you have that ability to get into bookstores which most Vanity Press people will say you do, but you really don’t. So we can talk more about that later. But that’s what I do and that’s kind of a little bit of history of how long I’ve been in the publishing industry. There are a lot of changes that have happened within the past three years and it’s been exciting and scary to watch at the same time—exciting for entrepreneurs but a little scary for the people who are in the traditional realm as well because they have been having a lot of trouble with just keeping up with the times and the new technologies and the traditional industry is really suffering. So it’s a sad thing for them but at the same time it’s a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to just jump out there and do their own thing and be able to have the same tools the traditional publishers use. That’s it in a nutshell.

Sarah – Okay, so they can find you at www.iampublished.com. Is there anywhere else that they can find you?

Kristen – My website www.kristeneckstein.com and I have a business website for what we do overall with our studio, Imagine Studios, and its www.artsimagine.com and I also have a Twitter. I like to Twitter publishing industry news, writing tips, prompts, all sorts of things to just get your brain moving, and it’s “Twitter.com/imaginestudios” and then you can also find me on Facebook by just doing a search for my name, Kristen Eckstein. I’ve got a regular profile page and I do respond to e-mail so if you have any questions, so you can just Facebook it to me and Twitter me back or whatever, and I’m happy to help.
Sarah – That’s great and I love that like you said, Kristen is very available and wants to be in the field per se and so even the questions that I have, she has been able to answer. So very exciting. Why do you think it’s important for Biz Kids to learn about publishing and writing in general?

Kristen – Well Biz Kids are unique in that they are doing things that culturally they are told not to do. As a culture, we are taught that kids are supposed to be kids and just play out in the back yard or play video games and that they can’t really do anything else. Schools don’t necessarily support entrepreneurship. They don’t challenge kids as much anymore because they are trying to fit kids of all different levels in one classroom and they just can’t. They are not set up to do that. At least the public school system isn’t and so it’s important for Biz Kids to learn about all avenues, including writing and publishing because as they get out there and start their businesses, not only are they going to be a novelty just because they have a business and they are a kid, but if they have a book under their belt, that is even more of a “wow” factor because adults just have this block of how difficult it is to write a book and it’s really not. The kids have none of those inhibitions at all. They just run with it and so being able to see a kid that’s published, I would absolutely love to be a fly on the wall during “show and tell” when this 3rd grader comes in the room and says, “Here’s my new book. It’s published.” I don’t know if you know the novel Aragon. It was originally self-published. Well, the kid who wrote it was 16 years old and his parents ran their own publishing company, which is what I teach people how to do, so they were already set up in the same way that I am and they published his book for him, and I think that’s so cool because they actually have what’s call a “family press.” They publish their family’s work, their own work. They are self-published, but at the same time they can do their friends if they want to and it became such a big novelty and it’s actually just so cool that this 16 year old wrote this book, and it gave him a catalyst into the traditional publishing realm where they were able to take it into the movie deal and sequels. He’s got like four books out now and he’s still in his early 20’s, so the ability is there that even though he started out self-published he could move on to other things. Self-publishing is a little more difficult than traditional. It’s less money up front, but it’s a little more work on the office part, but because he chose to go that route, one of his books from the first original printing (he actually used my printer) and now you can’t buy those books from that printer anymore. Those books are going for about $2,000-$3,000 on EBay. So they have become collector’s items almost. I think a lot of that was due to his age. He was young, but he had support and he was able to go out there and be an entrepreneur and then eventually got picked up by a major publisher that saw just this novelty in this kid that did something amazing.

Sarah – I love that. I think sometimes for at least my kids and some of the kids I know in general, writing is such a task. They think gosh, I have this assignment and why do I have to write, but I see at least in my own children and in a few other kids that I know, that when they are writing because it’s their story, it becomes an exciting process.

Kristen – Yes, and it becomes something that they want to share with other people. They get excited about it. It’s not an assignment. It’s not a topic given to them. It’s their own topic and it’s their own project and when I was growing up, there was nothing like my own projects. I would just come up with projects to do just because I wanted to do them, but I hated doing homework projects. I’d get those out of the way as fast as possible to do what I wanted to do.

Sarah – You’ve touched on my next question before, but I wanted to make sure that we hit it a little bit more. If a Biz Kid were to write a book about their business and their story, what could they use those books for? What could it do for their business?

Kristen – A book for some reason still gives instant credibility. That is the number one reason why speakers write books. It’s the number one reason why there are so many non-fiction books by “experts” out there. You can literally become an expert overnight just by writing a book and whether the book is good or not, it doesn’t matter. It’s just the nature of having a book with your name on it. It’s that “wow” factor. Wow, you are in print. Look it’s got 100 plus pages. Wow, you did this. It’s seen as a huge accomplishment even though it’s really not that difficult to do. So for their business, not only can it help spread the word about them and their business because they can write about their business, they can include what they do in their websites and where to go to get more information on their products or services. But it adds that credibility factor that can open all sorts of doors. I know of one Biz Kid who is going to be a multi-millionaire soon. He’s a millionaire right now, and he’s 13 years old. In fact, you know who he is, too. Amazing kid. I got to meet him in person last June. The most humble, laid back kid that you would ever meet, but he has been featured in a book and because of that, it’s opened up doors for him to go into public schools all over the nation and speak about entrepreneurship to the kids and how they can start their own businesses. So it can open a door to more than just what you are doing in your business. It can open up ways to get speaking engagements even young and be able to power and educate other people their age because we all know the best way to reach kids is through kids. Kids don’t necessarily listen to adults, but they are going to listen to another kid, and just having that book there also when they go out and do things like that for their business or for just speaking in general or whatever they choose to do, if they take books along, that’s back end sales and that’s revenue for their business. So whenever they sell books or include them as part of a workshop of whatever, they are able to generate some more income for them and for their families and their college funds and whatever else that they are saving for.

Sarah – I love what you said that they bring books for speaking engagements and some of these Biz Kids that I talk to, they are being paid multiple thousands of dollars to speak at one gig. They are getting paid extraordinary money because of what they have done, so not only does it increase sales for their books but they are also building credibility for a platform of speaking.

Kristen – And when they are older it’s not going to go away because they have already built a name for themselves. So just because they were a novelty because they were kids doesn’t mean that once they grow, that’s going to go away like celebrity kids do. Typically celebrity kids are done. They don’t keep acting. They get other acting gigs but they are not quite as popular once they are grown. But with a Biz Kid that’s going to be totally different because a. they’ve got an established business with an established following, and b. they’ve got their book out there which tells their story from their age perspective. They can come out with another book when they are in their teens and another one when they are in college talking about the transitions and the processes they went through in their business, and those books will just keep adding credibility to them and those will be literally building a platform that can be something that just shoots them into their future. I believe in education but I don’t believe college is the only way to go, especially for entrepreneurs. I mean, a lot of entrepreneurs end up going to college, get some degree, don’t do anything with it and then they take workshops and classes to learn something that’s actually in their passion and they end up doing that. So we are paying back the government $30,000 to learn how to do something. So having that piece of paper and that degree, I think is important, but at the same time, if a Biz Kid starts early, not only can they just whiz their way through college and have it paid for, but they already have their platform, their business, they have a better idea what they want to do and they can take college courses that will help them rather than just be your general college courses just to get through school. They can actually focus more on their talents and what they want to do.

Sarah – It will be almost like an ala carte degree. You know, like I want to take all these classes but I really, really want to make my business more profitable also.

Kristen – And if you have to get that degree anyway, then you may as well make it work and make it be something that’s going to support you and your business that you already have established and in my case, that’s actually what I did. I made myself an ala carte degree. My college had a special degree program specifically for art students because art students liked all the classes and wouldn’t graduate. In order to get us to graduate, they gave us a make-up-your-own-degree sheet and we got to plug in every single class we wanted to take and it counted. So instead of taking these stupid classes that were just for Gen Ed and didn’t go anywhere, we were able to plug everything in and make everything count towards our degree. And choose what we wanted to take, which I thought was fabulous. It was just a lot of fun.

Sarah – Where would Biz Kids start and exactly what is the process?

Kristen – Well, obviously they need to start writing. That’s the number one thing. That’s the first thing they need to do. They need to find someone—their parents’ friends, teacher, anybody to hold them accountable for their writing or they just take a few days and like over Christmas break or over spring break, they just sit down and write. I wrote my last book in 3 ½ days and that’s because I went to the beach with no internet, no distractions and just holed myself up with lap top and wrote continuously. They don’t have to start writing, “Hi my name is so and so. “ They can just start making notes of what they want to put in their book. For instance, my last book is on faith and finances, and I was just taking notes from workshops and places that I’ve been, my church, things that I had been learning over the past couple of years and I took all those notes and compiled and organized them into topics, so there are a lot of notes under one topic. I may not have many notes under another topic, so I’ll see that this topic only has five notes. Maybe I can talk about two topics. I can combine them. And each topic ends up being a chapter in your book. So you don’t have to think of it in terms of book and chapters. You can break it down into notes and topics and then just start writing on each topic. So they can take say the topic of marketing and say this is how I market my business as school and they can just jot down ideas and notes of how they can or what things they are already doing and then all they have to do is look at their notes and start constructing sentences around their notes. And once they’ve got 10-15 notes for one chapter and they write it all down, they’ve got a chapter. So that’s definitely the way you have to start with a book because you can’t have something published if you don’t have something written.

Sarah – And I think that would make it easier if they took kind of what they knew and really honestly, if they start journaling right away about what’s happening in their business, they could look over their journal and use that. And lots of kids use that for writing assignments; so that’s great.

Kirsten – Yes, you can literally publish your journal. What Biz Kid out there wouldn’t like to see what another Biz Kid is writing in their journal about their business? You could even develop it as a journal and publish it as a journal, not a journal other people would write in, but so that people could read your journal. Like for instance, there is a rock star and I don’t know what band he plays in. It might be Nirvana. I don’t listen to that music, but I did see a book in Barnes and Noble and it looked interesting, and I picked it up and it happened to be this guy’s journal. Lots of crazy stuff in it. He’s clearly on drugs, but it was interesting because it was like they scanned every page of his journal, so you could see his chicken scratch marks and his doodles and drawings and ideas and concepts, and I thought that’s just a fabulous idea for a book, and I think that somebody should do it. Steal my idea somebody out there. So if a kid wants to journal like that and just keep track of like “Today I started my business. This is what it’s about. And then the next day, I had a struggle. This happened with my website, but here’s how we got over it.” Just take it day by day, even the mundane things, and the exciting things. “I find a new client and it happens to be a corporation.” Exciting stuff like that and then just write little notes down, and once you have like even just 6 months worth in your journal, that’s enough to publish.

Sarah – That’s such a great idea. I’m loving that. I’m taking good notes. Well, I’m not a Biz Kid, but I know a couple. I’ve got some homework assignments today it sounds like. Well what templates are available, either that you offer or that are out there on the Web? Are there any resources that have like fill in the blank or that Biz Kids can find useful for starting them on a writing program, besides following on Twitter because I think that’s great. You’ve done a lot of writing prompts on those pages of Twitter.

Kristen – Writing prompts, but I also did a fan page on Facebook where you can become a fan of writing, so if you just search for “writing” it should come up or on Facebook.com/writing fan. That’s a writing page that I run also. In fact there is a link there. It’s really long. I can’t say it on the air because it’s so long, but there is a link there in the link section that takes you to a web page that’s just a practice for writing and how to write, and it’s very interesting because all you do is type in how long you want to write for, how many words are your goal, just put in whatever you want and it’s actually called the “wicked” something or other because it gets mean if you want it to. You can set the settings to yell at you if you are making too many mistakes. It’s kind of a silly, fun thing, but it really does help you get away from analyzing and thinking about everything you are putting down on paper, and you can actually write right there on the website and you can copy/paste that to something to save it. As far as actual templates, I don’t know of any templates that are like fill-in-the blank. Most books and writing courses are going to teach you from scratch. I do have a program that will be launching in the spring of 2010 and it’s called “Finish the Book” and the website will be www.finishthebook.com. Don’t go there now because there is nothing there yet. I will hopefully have something there soon, but it’s an at home study course. We don’t even have the price point for it yet because right now it’s in a writing focus group with people who write different genres, and they are giving us feedback on it and helping us see where we can make it better. But it is literally an e-mail online course and shows up in your e-mail in box every week exactly seven days after you sign up and it will show up for 12 weeks and it’s a three month program. It takes you from finding your focus for your next, or your first book, and what you need to do to determine what your focus is, why you are writing, who you are as a writer and that type of stuff you really do have to be grounded in before you get into a big project because once you get into a big project, you might be halfway through it and want to give up because you don’t know why you started it to begin with. So we establish that first hand and then we take you through fill-in-the blank exercises, but they are more like almost essay questions. We will ask you to start writing about a character and here are ideas for characters or start writing about a topic and here are the different points you need to make about a topic. So we give you examples and then it’s up to you to choose the topic and start writing about it. And by the end of the course, you are supposed to have at least one chapter written if not more, and then the very last lesson is teaching you how to find other people who can help you and develop your team and interview experts and things like that. If you are working on fiction, it’s got to be believable. Non-fiction doesn’t have to be believable, but fiction does, so if you choose to write a short story or some kids want to write fiction novels and they need to make them believable or they might want to interview a lawyer or someone who is in the profession of one of their characters. So we teach them how to do that through this course. But it’s not really a fill in-the blank, here is your chapter title, here is your topic you are going to be talking about. It’s more to get you thinking about it and it’s more of an action step taking program where, by the end of it, you will be writing. Actually my husband is going through the focus group right now with me and it’s very interesting because he was complaining about not being able to write and not having time to write and getting all upset about not being able to write on some of his projects and when we started this course, by the time we did our 3rd lesson, he was waking up at 5:00 a.m. on his own, no alarm clock, every morning and writing for a good hour or hour and a half before he went to work. He said it motivated him to get up and move. And this is a guy who has struggled making decisions and he knows that, so I can say that here, and he really struggles with that, and this type of writing he actually developed like I think it was three or four pages of the character profile, just for one character, but it’s the main character in a fiction series that we are going to be working on next year and just doing that every morning at 5:00 a.m., he got better and better. He was able to make quicker decisions. Because when you are writing fiction, it has to be believable, but still anything goes, so you have a lot of decisions to make. Non-fiction is a little easier because you don’t have a lot of decisions, but there is another thing called “yWriter “and you can do a Google search for that. That link will also be on the Writingfan page on Facebook, but that link is a downloadable software that is free that was written for writers by writers and it really helps you craft mostly a fiction book. I haven’t really played with it much for non-fiction, but I think it’s possible to use. It helps you craft everything from your scenes that you want to develop, to your characters, to the topics, to everything and it can track everything for you and you can export it in a Word document when you are done. It is really neat. You can even scan in pictures, so say you want to feature someone, you want to describe them. You can scan in a picture or download the picture into it and go reference that picture when you are talking about them—like she has brown eyes and brown hair. Well, that might not be accurate, so you can go in and look at it. For fiction, you can even scan in a floor plan, so you’ll know when you have the character turn to the left or the right if there is a window there or not. You will know if that is accurate, so it’s a really neat program. It’s call yWriter. And those are probably the best resources that I can give you at this time.

Sarah – Those are great. I hadn’t heard of those so I’m really excited. I know the Biz Kids and the parents listening are going to be excited too. The next question is what are the costs involved in getting published and you mentioned this before, but is there a stair step to that or is it just a straight $3,000?

Kristen – If you go Vanity, it’s going to be a straight $3,000. They expect that upfront. Some of them do have payment plans, but if you choose to start your own family press or your own publishing company, that $3,000 is not necessarily going to be $3,000, and you might know someone who is a professional designer you could barter with. You might know somebody who is an editor who has worked for a publishing company or something like that you can barter with for services or products because that number is really the highest you should be paying. It could be a lot lower. You can also spread it out. I have one client who graduated our I Am Published Platinum Program last year and it took her nine months to go through the program and part of that was not funding. Most of it was actually because of some family stuff that was going on, but she still was able to spread it out. The most important thing to get upfront that is going to cost you the most is going to be your ISDN numbers and those are $275. You can’t get around that. If you want to sell books, you’ve got to have your ISDN numbers, but you can pay for that upfront.

Sarah – Is that $275 each?

Kristen – No, that’s for ten of them. If you buy them one at a time, you are going to pay $165 for one.

Sarah – Okay, so for 10 that makes sense because then you can pick one kind of in the middle and that makes it look more believable that you are a published author.

Kristen – And then if you want to learn how to do all this step by step, the I Am Published Home Study Course is $497, so it’s not cheap and it is an all upfront thing, but it also includes coaching sessions with me personally. I don’t give you to one of my staff, so it’s a good bonus. But really overall, you should expect to pay about $3,000, and if they are Biz Kids, you can tell them whenever they make a sale on something, they can set aside a portion of those profits into an account and when it reaches maybe like $500-$1000, you can get started.

Sarah – But all along the way they can be writing. So as soon as they are writing, as soon as they have the funding for getting ISDNs and as soon as they have the funding for making sure it’s all proofed and everything like that.

Kristen – And really your ISDN numbers won’t do you any good unless you have a book written. That is definitely something you need to do first, but we are also talking about books that compete on common book shelves. We are not talking about www.looloo.com that is supposedly free. And I can give you articles I wrote on Looloo.com and why they are not really free. We are not talking about Vanity publishers that don’t accept return books because if you don’t accept returned books, Barnes and Noble red flags you. There is actually a Vanity publisher that used to be the Barnes and Noble Pet publisher and now all their books are red flagged because they have been a horrible quality. The problem with Vanity publishers is they accept anything. It doesn’t matter as long as you give them money. You give them money; they are going to publish it. So they have a very bad reputation because of this and they don’t accept returned books. It’s a win-win to accept returned books because not only can you open that door to get into bookstores, but if you have returned books, you can sell them in your back end, so for entrepreneurs, it’s a good thing. For me, whenever I get a box of returned books from my distributor, I just sell them at my vending table wherever I go, so I’m not really losing any money.

Sarah – That makes a lot of sense. So we’ve talked about the cost involved and then I think you did a little bit of tips on how you get into Barnes and Noble. Basically you need to be published; you need to have some ISDNs. Is there anything else that they need to know about that?

Kristen – Well, if they are writing a non-fiction book or even a fiction book as long as it’s not full color hard back because right now the print on demand industry can’t do full color hard back. They can do soft back, just not hardback for a reasonable price. Then you can actually get put into the same distribution channels that traditional publishers use. So it’s just a matter of sending all your friends to the same bookstore to order the same book. If they see the demand, they start stocking it. That’s kind of a little marketing ploy there.

Sarah – So tell everyone to go the Barnes and Noble at this location.

Kristen – Exactly. You can send 5-10 people to each location around town and let them know it’s a local author and they are very open to local authors especially Borders and Walden. Barnes and Noble is a little closed right now. They are even closing their doors to some traditional publishing books. They are hurting right now. As far as Amazon, as long as you have a distributor, you are on Amazon. It costs $12 a year.

Sarah – That’s not very expensive. How do you get your books in libraries?

Kristen – That’s the same thing. As long as it’s listed in the distributor. The library distributor for the U.S. is Baker and Taylor. The distributor that I use is also with Baker and Taylor, so that printer is print on demand also. If you are going through getting your books offset printed which is typically 3,000 books at a time. That’s about the minimum book printers will do or if you go through a print on demand printer that is not hooked up with a distributor because then you are going to have to jump through hoops to get through any distributor, and you will just have to go the websites www.bakerandtaylor.com or www.ingrambook.com, but those are the two major distributors that you want to be listed with. And I know Ingram will make you jump through so much red tape before you can get in with them. There are other distributors like Bookmasters based out of Ohio. I’ve worked with them before and they offer distributions, but you are going to pay up to around $100 a month for that distribution, so it’s really not going to pay off. I’m encouraging people to go to the distributor that I use and this is one that the Vanity publishers use, too.

Sarah – And then what do you do for a virtual book tour because these Biz Kids are young and so a lot of them are going to be having school and they are going to be having activities and things, so do you feel like an in person book tour is more effective for them or doing something virtual where they have a site and they do videos and where they do interviews and things like that?

Kristen – I think they are going to need both because there is nothing like seeing a short little guy show up in person with a book. Other than just the picture on a website somewhere, it makes it tangible when you are in person, so the in person stuff is very important, but as far as having a website, that is a must. They are going to have to have a website for their business anyway, so they may as well tack a book page on the website. There is no need to create a whole new website just for their book, they can just tack it on and they should have a blog going on that site that keeps it updated regularly and that once again brings back that novelty concept that this is a kid doing this and so people will be interested in reading it just because of that. Those are probably the main things. As far as a virtual book tour, that’s a really loaded question because a virtual book tour is not just your own website, it’s also being interviewed by people, being a featured blog poster on other people’s blogs, having your videos publicized at a specific place and time and it is usually scheduled way in advance so it’s actually where you actually have scheduled out and you will have an events list on your website of your tours, and say you’ve got in two weeks an interview with this radio show that’s an internet radio show and then the next week you are going to be a guest blogger on such and such a page and it’s going to be published, and then the next couple of weeks you are going to be featured on a video that’s going to be on this site, so there is a lot of planning involved with that and the cool thing is that it’s your own website and you’ve got control over that, like you set up a blog. You can just update any time you have a new event and you can call it your “virtual book tour.” It’s just planned out. It’s not sporadic.

Sarah – That makes sense. Thank you for explaining that so effectively. I love that. So as you are closing, what would you recommend as a great book that they can see information where they can read about real life success stories about Biz Kids?

Kristen – My favorite book right now is “The Richest Kids in America” by Mark Victor Hansen. I’ve met several of these kids in person and I’ve met Mark and it’s just a fabulous resource. They talk about how they got started, from the struggles, the things that they had to overcome and it’s just a great book for any Biz Kids for encouraging them to reach their dreams and go farther. All of the kids have one thing in common. They have very supportive parents and I believe that’s very essential. I don’t think that Biz Kids are going to be able to do much without supportive parents, but being supportive doesn’t mean you fund everything. One of the stories in there is a girl who is an artist and wanted to open an art gallery and her parents said, “That’s great. You get to come up with the money to do it.” And she did. So it doesn’t mean that they are going to be funding out of their pocket this kid’s business. This kid’s got to find innovative ways to come up with the finances and the capital to be able to run their own business and it tells the stories of I think 11 different kids in there.

Sarah – There is. My whole family has read it.

Kristen – So each one is a little bit different. Everyone is in a different industry and so there is a lot of good tips and resources that they give in that book, so that’s probably my favorite right now. And the cartoons are just perfect. It’s written with kids in mind, so kids should enjoy reading it.

Sarah – Alright. Any parting words? Anything that you would like to close with as we finish up this amazing interview? Thank you so much for your time. It’s just been great. So what would you like to share with Biz Kids?

Kristen – I would just like to share with them that no matter what comes across your path, don’t give up. I started my first business when I was six years old and I actually jumped on the “pet rocks” craze that was going on in the 1980’s and now you know how old I am. I started drawing with a Sharpie marker on these rocks from our driveway, and I did sell two to some unsuspecting kids who didn’t know any better. That business was not successful. It was the right time, but the niche was already filled. The more original the ideas, the better. Not all the ideas are going to work, but that doesn’t mean you don’t try them anyway and just jump out there and try them. If it has to do with book publishing, don’t let the finances hold you back because there are ways to come up with money. I don’t have thousands of dollars in the bank, but we had to purchase a new computer system in order for our office to keep running and I needed to raise $2,000 that I did not have, so I just decided to be innovative. I launched a couple of new programs. I did a lot of service space work. I promoted like crazy trying to get myself out there, and I raised the money within a couple of weeks and we paid cash. So I encourage people not to go into debt. That’s actually what two of my books are about – finances and debt and the avoiding it at all costs. I would rather see them take the time and write and while they are writing, take the time to set aside money to save up for their projects and know that when you do it totally yourself, you don’t have to fork out $3,000 up front, and you might have resources at a community college or something with graphic designers who have done books so it doesn’t mean you have to fork out for, I mean you want a professional design, yes, but you don’t have to fork out thousands of dollars for that professional design and the same thing for editing. And the actual publishing costs, the printer that I use charges $75 to set up a book and then it’s just your book printing costs, so there is no mark up on that. So that’s my last thing that I would say. Just don’t give up. Keep plugging away and don’t let money be a hindrance to seeing your dreams come true.

Sarah – Thank you so much, Kristen! So Biz Kids be sure that you go to www.iampublished.com, as well as in the follow-up e-mail that you will receive, you will get the list of all the other locations that she talked about, so just know that you can do it. Know that you have a story inside of you and that it’s worth publishing and have a great day! Thank you so much, Kristen.