Inspiration
I am so excited to have my first interview post be on Julie Kirsch Akers!
She is not only one of my closest friends, but I’m also fortunate to call her family. In addition, Julie just published her first book- which has been a dream for years.
A little background on Julie. She is a former elementary and middle school teacher who spent the majority of her teaching career with fourth graders and loved every aspect of it. Julie attributes her ADHD as one of the reasons she loved teaching. With her mind always going she came up with different creative ways to teach difficult lessons to all types of learners. She is that person who sleeps with a notepad and pen next to her bed and is always jotting down ideas in the middle of the night. In 2003 she left teaching to start a family. Julie and her husband, Jeff, have three daughters who are now teens and older. Although she stopped teaching, she still continued to help with kids as a volunteer coach, troop leader, PTO member, school parent aide, volunteer foster mom, tutor, and the list goes on. But the dream was always in the back of her mind that she was going to publish a book, actually eventually a series of books, based upon one of her favorite teaching styles.
So, let's get back to her teaching days- this is where the real story for her interview starts. One day Julie had a substitute teacher and decided to have her students watch “School of Rocks’ while she was away. When Julie returned to her classroom her students were all chanting “Conjunction junction, what's your function?” but, unfortunately none of them could actually tell her what the function of a conjunction was. Seeing that her current students loved having a song, but not actually knowing what they were supposed to get from it, a lightbulb went off. That night Julie wrote a new jingle, and then another and another. These songs became ones her students learned, loved, remembered, and years later would return telling Julie that her jingles helped with standardized testing and even high school level English classes. They worked! This is when her dreams started of one day making these songs into books.
These dreams remained as Julie raised her girls, always saying someday…
That someday came about recently while out to lunch with a bunch of girlfriends. Julie told her friends about her jingles, her desire to one day have them published, and knowing how much they helped her students. Julie loved how much they helped her former students and wanted to have these songs continue helping kids. This is where one of her friends gave her the first step to the process- a site called Fiverr . At Fiverr Julie could remotely interview illustrators from all over the world. She found an illustrator! Julie was able to remotely work with this illustrator to come up with exactly how she wanted the design of her first book!
Julie now had the words and illustrations. She also went online to copyright her songs. Next was finding a publisher.
Julie felt she needed a publisher who would basically hold her hand through the whole process since this was new territory for her. Julie knew her hurdle was finding a publisher who would work with a first time author. In Julie fashion she asked around, did google searches, and went to the bookstore to look at children’s books that were not written by big name authors and took note of their publishers. And then the inquiries started. She called around to multiple publishing companies looking, asking questions, and knew she was at the point where she just had to take a leap of faith.
Julie knew she:
-Didn’t want to lose any rights to her books
-Wanted them to assign the ISBN number
-Put her book online, and have the options of eBook, paperback, and hardcover options
Julie learned after the fact that multiple publishers have in their set contract that they work with an illustrator. She actually liked working with the illustrator herself to get the finished product she wanted, with her personal touches. Julie needed her 1st publisher, since it was all new, to promote, finish the copyright, assign an ISBN number, edit the book, get it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other platforms, as well as formulate it as paperback, hardcover, ebook, and create a website.This publisher basically held her hand and guided her through the process, and since her first book was just published, some of these steps are still being worked on.
Since publishing her first book, Julie has spoken to many people and has learned that she can actually publish her own books through AI. There are so many options. For her first book Julie realized she just had to do it- take a hit in order to take the next step. She signed with a publisher the first time just to get her book out there, but now knows that going forward she will not be fully satisfied with this publisher. She just had to make a move in order to get to the next step. She doesn’t regret it, but wishes she would have known more, but also feared that if she didn’t make a move, it would just have been put off again.
Advice Julie wants to give others that she now knows she should have asked for her first book:
-What quality of paper is used
-How much will the publisher charge the consumer for the finished product?
-How long will it take to get the finished product:
-Is it print on demand?
-How many free copies will be provided to the author?
-What are the royalties per sale?(This will also help understanding the pricing of the book and allow for flexibility in the pricing)
Julie’s advice to others for whatever dreams and aspirations they have:
Usually, the only thing standing in the way of fulfilling your dreams is your own fear.
Everyone is connected to someone who knows something that can help you out. All you have to do is talk to people, and ask for help.
5 fun facts about Julie:
Growing up she played just about every sport besides tennis. She first touched a racquet when her girls were in elementary school and found a love for the sport, now playing and competing almost everyday.
Newest favorite drink is a dirty chai (dirty means it’s coffee not tea) nonfat latte with a cinnamon topping
Her last Amazon purchase was…her book! Pure joy and excitement purchasing her own product on Amazon!
Every morning, before getting out of bed, Julie reads the daily prayer on Pray.com
If you know Julie this probably won't surprise you, but, her dream job when she was little-and was scared to pursue(or admit this) in college- was to be a game show host. I can guarantee if Julie ever started hosting online trivia she would have a huge following!
Hopefully Julie’s journey will inspire, help, and motivate at least one person to follow a dream, no matter how big or small. The best part of Julie’s story is it is still continuing as she has more books to publish and keeps learning the process that works for her.
Hope you enjoy Skeltunes! Click the book to be connected to the link