Sherry Ellis Interview Published on: 28, Mar 2019

Most of my childhood was spent in Cleveland, Ohio. Sesame Street and Mister Rogers were my two favorite shows. Basically, those were the only two I was permitted to watch. My parents didn’t believe in letting my brother and I sit in front of the television for more than an hour a day.

For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in music. There are pictures of me as a three-year-old sitting on my dad’s lap, playing a guitar. If I had my choice of toys to play with, I’d always gravitate to the musical ones. I think I’ve always been wired to be a musician. My favorite musician is Itzhak Perlman, a classical violinist. He was my inspiration to practice and achieve a high level of playing. I also think he’s a great role model in that he did not let having polio get in the way of achieving his dreams.

My first book was not a struggle. That Baby Woke Me Up, AGAIN was the easiest of them all. It was composed in my head in the middle of the night while I sat in a rocking chair with my infant son. Sleep deprivation must have helped my creative flow! The hardest was Bubba and Squirt’s Big Dig to China. It took ten years and countless revisions to see it published. What kept me going? The belief that it was a book worth publishing because of its educational value.

Writing an alphabet book was on my author bucket list. I don’t know why an elephant character popped into my head, but it did. I must’ve been hungry, too, because I started thinking about food. I wondered if I could come up with a food item for every letter of the alphabet. I did. Then I imagined what the elephant would do with each food item. The result is a comical story about a very silly elephant playing with food.

As a picture book writer, I must choose my words carefully. It’s important to convey the story in a concise way. The illustrations take care of a lot of the scenes that are not described with words. I enjoy writing children’s books, mostly because I’m a kid at heart, but also because I like collaborating with illustrators, and meeting the kids who read my books.

I tend to focus on dialog because the interaction between the characters gives the reader a good sense of their personalities. It’s a show and not tell thing.

Describing any of the chaotic, messy scenes was great fun. I let my imagination go wild in creating scenarios that would make Mama grouchy. The hardest was imparting the message of the importance cleaning up and following household rules. I didn’t want to be too preachy, but I still wanted that to be a learning feature of the book.

Most of my writing activities take place during the day, between all the regular household things I take care of. My evenings are generally spent teaching violin, viola, and piano, or performing. My preference? Music. That’s my passion. Playing the viola is my favorite thing to do.

I have been fortunate to receive a lot of excellent reviews for Big Dig to China praising it for its educational value. It’s hard to pick the best, but I received a nice one from Readers Favorite which called it, “a pulsating adventure with great appeal to young readers, cinematic, and littered with humor.” Recently, I read a review from a student who was older than the intended audience. She didn’t feel it was well-written, said the problems were resolved too quickly, and that at times the humor was not respectful of Chinese culture. The first two didn’t concern me that much, because I felt what I wrote was appropriate for the age it was intended for. Other reviewers seem to agree. But the latter bothered me a lot. I would never write anything intentionally disrespecting any culture. I write to teach about different cultures. This review is not published anywhere, but it made me think that I need to be extremely cautious with the humor I use so as not to offend anyone.

In what ways has becoming an author changed your life in ways you didn't expect? Since becoming an author, I have done numerous library and school visits. I never imagined myself leading story times or standing in front of groups of more than one hundred kids giving PowerPoint presentations! It’s been a lot of fun meeting and interacting with these kids.

That Baby Woke Me Up, AGAIN was published in 2005. It wasn’t a book I sat down to write. As I mentioned before, it was composed while I was sitting in a rocking chair in the middle of the night. It probably would have stayed in my head if I hadn’t decided to share it with my daughter who was three years old at the time. She liked it and suggested that it should be a book. The rest is history.

I think all my writing contains some element of humor, whether it’s in the scenes I set, or the character dialog. I also tend to be fast-paced, not having needless conversation, backstories, or elaborate descriptions. The action moves quickly.

I hope to continue writing and doing school and library visits. I’d like to see more books of the Bubba and Squirt adventures published. In my head, I have an entire series planned: a total of eight books with a plot thread connecting them. I’ve already written the second and am working on the third. Whether or not these come to fruition depends on book sales.

1. Submit only your best work. This means a lot of revision. If you can, join a critique group or find beta readers who can help you polish your work. Spend the money to have your manuscript professionally edited before you submit it. It’s worth every penny!
2. Be patient. Writing is a process. It takes time to write, time to revise, and time to find a publisher who is interested in your work. Things don’t happen in weeks or months. Expect years.
3. Don’t give up. It can be frustrating when the rejection letters keep piling up. Take the time to reassess your manuscript and make sure it is the best you can do. Then continue submitting. It took ten years for Bubba and Squirt’s Big Dig to China to be published. I’m glad I didn’t give up!
4. Be part of an online writing community. It’s important to have an online presence. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are all good ways to market your book, but I think even more importantly, you should be part of an online writing community. I’m a blogger. I’ve been doing it for over ten years. The friendships I have made with other bloggers have been instrumental in helping get the word out about my books. Most bloggers are also writers, so they understand the challenges of being an author. They are very supportive, both in purchasing and reviewing your books, and in spreading the word. I am extremely grateful for my blogger friends! I would also suggest joining Goodreads and participating in groups there.
5. Go out and meet your intended audience. I’m a children’s writer. The best way I have found to market my books, is to go and do school author visits and library visits. I have sold more copies by going out and getting in front of the kids who read my books.

I have been very happy with my experience with AllAuthor. I love the automated Twitter scheduler! I also appreciate the Twitter posts, mock-up banners, and the author interview which have been provided as part of the pro- author/featured book experience. All are great marketing tools! I’m not sure there’s much that can be improved upon. The only thing I can think of is maybe having an optional giveaway feature where authors can have a monthly giveaway of their book to generate more attention. The author would get a gift code from Amazon for their ebook, submit it to AllAuthor, and winners would be selected by an automated system.