[00:00:01.290] - Dori Durbin
Hello, and welcome to The Power of Kids Books, where we believe books are a catalyst to inspire and empower change. I'm your host, Dori Durbin. Have you ever had a sneaking suspicion that you should write a kids book, even though your career training and background might not fit the kids book author mode? Well, if you've ever had one iota that you should write, you're going to love our guest today. He's a supply technician, USAF Carolina Pints lodging, a dad, and a former Air Force and armament system specialist who is now a kids book author. Welcome, Douglas Barry.

[00:00:41.190] - Douglas Berry
Hi. Thanks for having me on.

[00:00:43.100] - Dori Durbin
Oh, thank you. Your character is so adorable. Your character is a rabbit named Jasper.

[00:00:49.160] - Douglas Berry
Yes, ma'am. Thanks for that. When we developed Jasper, I told my illustrator, it's like, this has got to be the cutest bunny rabbit anybody has ever seen. I said, Aside from anything else, we got to nail that rabbit.

[00:00:59.630] - Dori Durbin
And does he look like the rabbit that actually inspired the story?

[00:01:03.410] - Douglas Berry
Yes and no. The rabbit my son caught in the backyard was a wild rabbit, so it was all brown. That one spent the night in the house, but after that, when we let that one go, my son's like, dad, I really want a pet rabbit. So we went out and we bought a rabbit, which is a Dutch rabbit, and the character is the embodiment of our pet rabbit that we had years ago. So, yeah, his image is forever ingrained in my books.

[00:01:26.790] - Dori Durbin
I love that. And I was a former rabbit razor, so I know exactly what you're talking about. And your rabbit does look like that just orange. That's great. Well, your background we talked a little before we started recording. Your background is extensive. I mean, I had written down for you that you went from a poultry farm owning, military family man to a children's book author.

[00:01:51.010] - Douglas Berry
Yeah, I've kind of done a lot, and that was on purpose because I just like to try different stuff. As I like to say, there is no practice life, so just go out and get what you want this time around because there's not a second time.

[00:02:05.180] - Dori Durbin
That's so true. And you didn't just try things. You were invested in them for years.

[00:02:10.330] - Douglas Berry
Yeah, a lot of commitment, that's for sure.

[00:02:13.850] - Dori Durbin
Yeah. Okay. So were you a poultry farmer first and then went into the military?

[00:02:18.670] - Douglas Berry
Yeah, I was raised in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, and at about the age of 15, my family moved down to Maryland to be poultry farmers, something we'd never done before. My dad sold insurance with Prudential, and all of a sudden we decided we were going to just move down there and raise chickens. Our chicken farm had about 45,000 chickens on it, so that's where we were at there. I always said we were reality TV before reality TV because we really didn't know what we were doing. We just kind of learned on the fly.

[00:02:49.070] - Dori Durbin
It's a lot of chicken to not know what you're doing with.

[00:02:52.710] - Douglas Berry
My uncle was down there, so he kind of gave us a little push and kind of told us what we needed to do. And dad was a quick learner, thankfully, and it worked out for us for many years. And I actually did about four years on the chicken farm, five years, and then I joined the Air Force in Chris Marion Station, Maryland. You're either a truck farmer raising produce, a chicken farmer, or you work the Chesapeake Bay. And we're a fisherman, commercial fisherman. And I learned by living there that I did not want to do any of those three things. And so I figured out, maybe I should join the military instead and see what I can do there as a career. And that worked out really well for me. 20 years well spent.

[00:03:34.590] - Dori Durbin
And I'm just fascinated. How did you end up in armament?

[00:03:38.320] - Douglas Berry
I really wanted to go in because I'm a little bit of a gearhead. I wanted to go in as a jet engine mechanic, more power kind of thing, and that job was closed down, so I had to go in as an open mechanical field. And they just kind of put you where they saw fit, according to your Aspab scores, and they said, what do you want to be an arm and system specialist? This is what you do. And I'm like, well, that sounds cool. I'm still working on the planes so that if you're going to join the Air Force, you want to work on the planes. You don't want a desk job somewhere. So I grabbed it and, yeah, it was a big learning curve.

[00:04:10.780] - Dori Durbin
So do you see any parallels between the poultry farming, the military, and children's book writing now that you've had time to kind of settle in?

[00:04:19.090] - Douglas Berry
No.

[00:04:21.970] - Dori Durbin
I was curious. I was thinking about dedication, perseverance, but they're all quite different. Really?

[00:04:27.640] - Douglas Berry
Yeah, all three of those are different. And like I was telling you earlier, it's like, I really feel like God kind of put me on this path. When my kids were up, I was always reading children's books, and I thought to myself, it's like, maybe I could write one. But everything seemed done. And then when my son caught that rabbit in the backyard and brought it in, I looked at my wife, I'm like, there's the story. So it was really kind of like I just kind of laid that in my lap and said, Here you go. Here's an idea. Run with it. See how far you can go. So that's what I'm doing.

[00:04:52.350] - Dori Durbin
That is amazing. I love that you had just one incident that just was, like the key to connecting everything for you, because a lot of people feel like maybe they could write a kid's book or they even have ideas about what their kids books could be, but they don't get to the point where they actually take that risk and do it. And you had a rabbit, of all things, actually literally hop into your life and hop out that caused that story to come through.

[00:05:22.870] - Douglas Berry
Yeah, it was definitely the process of writing a children's book. There's more to it than you would think from the outside looking in, and I learned a lot from that first book.

[00:05:35.550] - Dori Durbin
Now, did you have an editor working with you as you were actually writing or what was your process while I was writing?

[00:05:43.950] - Douglas Berry
After I wrote it and submitted it, the full publishing, it all goes through editing and all that sort of thing at that point. And thank goodness, because I think I was a C student in English my whole life growing up, so I need all the help I can get when it comes to editing.

[00:05:59.720] - Dori Durbin
I think we all do. We all want to save every word that we've come up with. And even if it's not right, it's our words.

[00:06:06.220] - Douglas Berry
Right.

[00:06:06.470] - Dori Durbin

So it's hard to give that up, for sure. So with your background and being a dad as well, right. What appealed to you about children's books that made you even want to write one?

[00:06:22.890] - Douglas Berry
I think just the fact that I read so many and I could see the joy of my kids faces as I would read the stories. If there's anything that led me that direction, that would be it. As I've said on other podcasts before, it's like to know that I can just quiet this noisy world down for kids for even if it's just five minutes and make them smile. That means a lot.

[00:06:49.890] - Dori Durbin
Yeah, I think so. For you, is it the connectedness, the opportunity for the connectedness between the parents, the kids and the book? Like you said, it's almost like it creates a little world for them separate.

[00:07:03.020] - Douglas Berry
Exactly. Yes, ma'am.

[00:07:05.830] - Dori Durbin
Yeah. Now, you have two books, right. You have one that is kind of the intro book and then one that is at the beach.

[00:07:15.050] - Douglas Berry
Yeah. There was never going to be a second book. There was going to be one and done. But instead of just selling the 30 copies I thought I was going to sell, I sold about 500 and people started asking me, where's Jasper going to go next? And I'm like, wow. Gave it absolutely no thought at all. But our family likes to vacation at the beach. And I'm like, all right, well, let's do a beach book. Everybody likes the beach. Kids love going to the beach. So we went that route and it was a little bit of a stretch to figure out how to get them these woodland critters to the beach. But we worked it out and it seems like it's working out pretty good for sure.

[00:07:54.310] - Dori Durbin
Yeah. So you said something really interesting about that, too. So having a book led you to feedback from kids that led you to having another book, right?

[00:08:05.770] - Douglas Berry
Right.

[00:08:07.530] - Dori Durbin
Have you had the opportunity to read your "beach book" to kids yet?

[00:08:11.550] - Douglas Berry
I have not. Now I've got and we'll see if it comes through. I am scheduled at two elementary schools this month to go do my first live readings. I'm a little bit of an introvert when I get around groups of people, so we will see how this goes. Dare I say, I'm intimidated by children, but I am I'm a little intimidated, so we'll see how it goes.

[00:08:35.970] - Dori Durbin
Well, let's see. You survived chickens and the military. I think you can handle these guys. But you know what's interesting too, is when you go in and you actually read to the kids, I'm sure they'll have new places for you to take Jasper and new ideas for you. And hopefully they'll be like instead of just two or three smiles up at you, you're having a whole room full of smiles when you're done. So it'll be really good.

[00:09:04.670] - Douglas Berry
That'll definitely let me know I'm heading in the right direction, but I pretty much already feel that way. The feedback I've gotten from the kids and I did a vendor event, signed my books and sold my books, and there were a lot of kids there. They had a jump Bounce house and stuff there and everything. And all these kids coming up to me checking out Jasper and everything. One little girl said, Why haven't I seen this rabbit in other books? Why am I just seeing it now? And I'm like it's because I created him. He's my creation. And she just got this big old wide eyed look on her face, and her folks came over and ended up buying some books. But I mean, that's that's what you shoot for as a children's book author. I mean, that's what you want to see. That's the feedback and the review and everything all in one, and it just lets you know you're doing the right thing.

[00:09:49.930] - Dori Durbin
Yeah. And those reviews are so hard to get. They're hard to come by. And when you can have parents take that opportunity to do that for you, that it actually helps your book so much more and gets it out there more into the future. Have you had a hard time getting reviews?

[00:10:06.050] - Douglas Berry
Oh, I have, yeah, on Amazon, my first book has got about 35 or 36 reviews. My second book, I think, is set right now at 13. But yeah, I mean, I'm posted on because I've got Jasper has a Facebook page. I posted on there all the time. It's like, hey, if you guys enjoy the book, make sure you go back to wherever you bought it from and put a review in there for me, because we kind of live by that, the algorithm they use and everything to promote the books on Amazon. I'll focus on those reviews, and the more reviews you have, the higher you get moved up in the algorithm. So it's pretty important.

[00:10:44.510] - Dori Durbin
Yeah. And I know it takes time for people to do it, but it really does help the author. And I think in a strange sort of side way, it encourages you to keep writing, too, because people are appreciating what you're doing.

[00:10:59.010] - Douglas Berry
Like we talked about before we came on, folks were already asking me about the third book. So we got the third book already written, getting ready to go out. I've got ideas. The fourth book is going to be a Christmas book. The fifth book I just had an epiphany the other day for a fifth book, folks asking me about doing something for handicapped kids. I'm like, how do you handicap a wild animal? And I got this brilliant idea. I don't know if I should say it or not, but I will because I'm not a smart man, but it's a ground mole. He's going to come up out of his hole and lose because ground moles can't see on the surface. The sun's too bright, so they're basically blind and he's not going to be able to find his way back to his den. So he's going to hook up with Chasper and the friends and stuff, and they're going to become friends and help him find his home again and stuff.

[00:11:54.470] - Dori Durbin
No one can steal this idea. It's already copyrighted right now. So, yeah, I do love that. We Have three legged cats. I thought maybe you were going to have a tripod animal there for a minute.

[00:12:09.830] - Douglas Berry
It's funny you should bring that up. And this takes me back to chicken farmer. We had a three legged chicken back in the day that we was part of the flock, and we decided to keep it as a pet.

[00:12:19.050] - Dori Durbin
Wow.

[00:12:19.640] - Douglas Berry
That was a funny looking critter right there.

[00:12:21.810] - Dori Durbin
That could be your next one after your 6th book. So as far as your book goes, did you have a book you wanted to share with us today that you.

[00:12:32.610] - Douglas Berry
Could yeah, I can read a portion.

[00:12:34.280] - Dori Durbin
Read that'd be awesome.

[00:12:36.050] - Douglas Berry
This is from the second book. "A Day at the Beach with Jasper and Friends."  And I've got that set up. I can read a couple of pages from that.

[00:12:43.810] - Dori Durbin
Awesome.

[00:12:45.890] - Douglas Berry
Just let me know when you want me to stop. Or I can just stop.

[00:12:49.430] - Dori Durbin
Give us a point. Maybe three pages. Three pages worth would probably be pretty good. Or 30 seconds, whichever is first.

[00:12:57.190] - Douglas Berry

I don't have a timer nearby, so 30 seconds is going to be a stretch. But I can read up to the point where they get ready to go out on their adventure here. So you ready to go?

[00:13:08.560] - Dori Durbin
Ready to go.

[00:13:10.190] - Douglas Berry
All right. Jasper was really enjoying his new house when along came a new friend with his old friends and Mouse. Squirrel said to Jasper, this is our new friend Swan, and she just moved to our nice little pond. Hello, said Jasper, you really like it here. And he and his friends lit out of a big cheer. Welcome, Swan. Welcome, Swan. Swan told them all of the place she passed on her way, and they all decided to take an adventure one day. The next morning, Jasper was woken up by his good friend Squirrel. Let's go on an adventure, he said, with a twirl. Swan told them the place was not hard to reach, and she said, I'm not sure, but I think they call it a beach. A beach they all call. We've never heard of that. Squirrel put an acorn shell in his head for a hat.

[00:14:01.450] - Dori Durbin
I love it. I love it. You rhymed so well. Is it difficult for you?

[00:14:07.150] - Douglas Berry
Yes.

[00:14:08.190] - Dori Durbin
Is it? I couldn't tell.

[00:14:12.850] - Douglas Berry
Yes. I need some help on that. But we're getting there. Each book gets better.

[00:14:19.410] - Dori Durbin

Okay. So I'm not picking on you. I'm just super curious. So if you don't rhyme well, but you really come off as rhyming well, how do you write your story then?

[00:14:31.190] - Douglas Berry
The ideas come to me quickly, and if I rhyme better, I could probably write it a little bit faster, but I'll get an idea for, like, a line or two, and I'll be like, all right, how in the world am I going to make this rhyme? So I try to use more common words at the end of the sentence, so I got a larger group of words to pick from to rhyme it. I didn't know to do that with my first book. I learned after the first book that that's what I needed to do with the second book. So, yeah, it's a learning process, for sure. It was wild, matter of fact learning process. Along that lines, when I did my first book, the illustrator is like, everything looks good, but illustrations, we need to need to give me word pictures so the illustrator knows what to put on the page. I'm like, I have no idea what to do. So I thought for a minute, and I'm like, well, I live in a house. And the first book was The Night I Spent a People House. So I started going around my house with my camera down about me high and taking pictures of my own house.

[00:15:45.680] - Douglas Berry
So actually, when you look at the first book and the pictures that are in there are actually the inside of my house, the backyard is my backyard and that sort of thing. I'm sure my neighbors thought I was crazy, walked down the road to the little community pond we have here and took pictures down by the pond. It was intimidating, but I think I worked through it.

[00:16:09.370] - Dori Durbin
That was really smart, though, because I gave the illustrator the rabbit's eye view that you were trying to achieve.

[00:16:16.710] - Douglas Berry
Yeah, they wanted to just do a written description, but it's like, I don't know what to do with that. So I just submitted pictures, too, hoping that they would make it to the illustrator, and they did. So that's kind of what I try to do now, but I still had to tell them. It's like, okay, put the rabbits here, put the squirrel there, put this expression. And when you first start these things, it's like you don't think of that. You just don't think about, okay, well, what expression does the squirrel have on his face? You work through all that.

[00:16:47.010] - Dori Durbin
How does the squirrel put the nut on its head? Yeah.

[00:16:53.010] - Douglas Berry
What I really want to do, too, is with these books is I want the image to follow the story, the words. So even a child that can't read yet can pick up my book and enjoy it and follow along with the story, even though they can't read. Again, I didn't know in my first book that that's what I wanted to do. I just kind of fell into it and realized I did it after the book was written. Oh, yeah, I probably should have thought about that. So I put more thought into that on the second book and the third book. And following the following books.

[00:17:22.670] - Dori Durbin
Do you feel like with each book you're trying to add in not just details, but kind of refocus it much more intentionally than your first book?

[00:17:35.410] - Douglas Berry
Yeah, the first book was I thought it was going to be bought by family and stuff, and then it got such a following with each book. Yeah. I tried to be more intentional with the situations I put them in and that sort of thing. I always like to say I don't really have a deep seated message in my books. My books are just simply fun stories that let kids be kids is kind of my tagline. I don't want to be at all wrapped around the actual about always trying to teach our kids this or he's trying to teach our kids that. I don't really get into any of that. I'll get into a little bit of that with the Christmas story because I want to do the Santa Claus and then I want to do the Christian story at the end. Kind of amalgamate the two together.

[00:18:17.230] - Dori Durbin
Yeah. I think that books that are fun encourage reading. If kids can be excited about reading something and walk away from it having had a positive experience where they laughed or they connected with the character, or they enjoyed the funny story, that's valuable in itself as well. They don't all have to preach goals or have morals or it's nice if you get something like that out of it, but it doesn't have to be that.

[00:18:48.730] - Douglas Berry
Exactly.

[00:18:50.010] - Dori Durbin
Yeah. I do love that you're thinking through what groups you could incorporate into your books, though, too, or what situations new places, like you were talking about, the mole, even including people that maybe aren't included in other books, I think is really important, too.

[00:19:11.390] - Douglas Berry
Yeah. And kind of a little bit of forest into my books in the farm book, actually in the background, and it's going to be called out in the book, a train goes by and that sort of thing. And I did that purposefully because I'm like, well, if I ever run out of ideas where these folks can go, well, now it's embedded in the story that there is a train right over there and these critters can hop on that train at any point in time and take an adventure somewhere that they're not used to.

[00:19:43.290] - Dori Durbin
Yeah, that's brilliant, actually, because I'm being serious, it just opens up. You can hop on a train and go anywhere, like you said. Very smart. Yeah, I think that the more that you work with your books and you truly let your brain just go and think through not just one book, but the series of future books, it helps that current book, but it helps to build more certainly. Okay. The Farm Book so I was curious, since you have a background in farming now, do you think that any of your books eventually will be about actual caring for animals?

[00:20:29.610] - Douglas Berry
I don't know the Farm Book as far as caring for animals, I mean, in the Farm Book, they will they're going to go feed the farm animals, so they're going to be caring for them that way, give them water and that sort of thing. But as far as, like anything else, I don't know that it's going to go any further than that.

[00:20:50.930] - Dori Durbin
Got you. Which is perfectly fine, by the way. So basically when you have interactions with your readers, and since you haven't done a lot of in person readings yet, I'm just curious, what are you hoping the kids get from not only the reading, but just the time, the time away?

[00:21:19.050] - Douglas Berry
I just really hope that they just enjoy the story and it brings a smile on their face. Like I said earlier, it just quiets the world for them for just that five or ten minutes that they sit down and read with the parents or I read to them or whatever they read themselves. With the Rhyming story the way it is, I'd like to think that it's going to help them learn to read. By no way do I have any kind of education in that department. I don't have a degree. I'm just me. And so I don't really know how to go about all that stuff. But I think they are set up in such a way to where the way the phrasing of the words and sentences and stuff I think is going to help them along that path.

[00:22:02.230] - Dori Durbin
Yeah, like you said, you were picking simple words, so hopefully they're predictable words in some way, but also they're simple enough that they can use that rhyme to help them read the next word. So I think that's very likely and very possible for them, for sure. So do you feel like there's a really big need right now for children's books in general?

[00:22:27.790] - Douglas Berry
I would like to think there is when it comes to these kinds of stories. If people want to try to teach their kids some big idea or something, there's books out there for that. I think there is a real need for books that don't do that and just allow your child to just read and laugh at a funny story and then just enjoy the time of the book.

[00:22:53.430] - Dori Durbin
I think you're right. Do you have a favorite book from when you were younger?

[00:22:59.050] - Douglas Berry
Not from when I was real young. And I don't read a whole lot now, which would probably surprise people. But when I was in high school, I was a big sci-fi nut, and I used to read Robert Heinland I think I'm saying his name correctly he was a big sci-fi writer, and I think I read just about all his stuff back in the day.

[00:23:19.550] - Dori Durbin
Interesting, because sometimes those writers end up influencing us as children's book authors, but maybe not in this case.

[00:23:27.330] - Douglas Berry
Not so much here. No.

[00:23:29.970] - Dori Durbin
Awesome.

[00:23:30.440] - Douglas Berry
They're not going to space yet anyway.

[00:23:33.270] - Dori Durbin
Well, that train could go to the space station. Okay, so we know there's at least five books ahead. Do you have any other plans for your books or for your new children's book business?

[00:23:51.830] - Douglas Berry
No. Well, I mean, I've had people who have looked at these books say I can see that as a Saturday morning cartoon. So, I mean, if I'm looking at a goal way down the road, if anybody out there is listening, I'm just saying that's in the back of my mind, I think it would make probably a really cool Saturday morning cartoon, but.

[00:24:15.570] - Dori Durbin
That'S way out there and yet not really like you get these stories going. You never know. And I can see Jasper in the background. I know on the podcast you can't see Jasper, but it's a really cute character. So my brain goes straight to stuffed animals and stickers and all that kind of product line as well.

[00:24:41.850] - Douglas Berry
I got what they call it zazzle.com. I've got a store where you can get all the logo stuff, hats, t shirts, pillows, and I am looking into stuffed Jasper, but they are extremely expensive to make. So right now we're on a little bit of a that's stalled, so but we'll see. I don't give up.

[00:25:04.920] - Dori Durbin
So not after five books. After five books, Jasper might be much cheaper.

[00:25:10.210] - Douglas Berry
Exactly.

[00:25:12.130] - Dori Durbin
Very good. Well, okay, I have grilled you, but I need to know one more thing. Where can they find your books and also find you and find more out about you?

[00:25:25.590] - Douglas Berry
Sure. Let's start with books because that's the important thing. You can get them pretty much everywhere online. Amazon Barnesandnoble.com Books a Million Walmart.com. They are literally everywhere and internationally, too. I mean, there's bookstores that carry them down in Australia on their web page that can be ordered all over the place and also order them at your local bookstore. You can just go in there. Since I've got the distributor that I do. Most local bookstores order through Ingram. So just go in there and tell them that you want to order my book and they should be able to get it for you.

[00:26:01.410] - Dori Durbin
And how about for you?

[00:26:03.330] - Douglas Berry
For me? I own just about every social media platform that I can be on just because I don't know any better. And I'm just trying to put my name out there as much as I can. I'm on Instagram. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. I actually started a TikTok thing. I got a YouTube page and I even dabbled in Reddit for a little bit. But that seems like that's not really I'm not getting much interest on there. But, yeah, literally just about everywhere you can find me, type in my name, Douglas Barry, children's book author, and all kinds of stuff is going to pop up. Now, one like that at first, of course, but I put a lot of effort into increasing my social media footprint so I can get out there.

[00:26:50.050] - Dori Durbin
That's fabulous. So we'll look for Douglas Berry and we'll look for Jasper at the beach and your other book, which was tell me the name of your first one again.

[00:26:59.330] - Douglas Berry
I lost my the night I spent in the people house.

[00:27:02.850] - Dori Durbin
Thank you. The night I spent at the People house. Both of those books. And we'll definitely leave reviews for you as well.

[00:27:11.690] - Douglas Berry
Awesome. Yeah, the reviews are important, for sure.

[00:27:14.970] - Dori Durbin
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Douglas. I appreciate it.

[00:27:19.210] - Douglas Berry
Thanks for having me on. This is a lot of fun, for sure.

[00:27:21.660] - Dori Durbin
Thank you.