Sorrow to Successful Self-Publishing to Surrender: Colleen Musser’s Field to Table Book Series

Today you will be encouraged and strengthened by listening to my talk with Colleen Musser about the process behind her book series for children. I recently did a giveaway of her books for email subscribers in my bi-weekly Tuesday email. I don’t intend to accompany each of these giveaways with a podcast episode. However, in that interaction, I discovered several things that made me want to hear her whole story.

Whether or not you are a writer, I think you’ll enjoy our conversation about sorrow, the writing craft, and putting God first.

I’ve included the audio version (podcast) and a transcript. They are not identical, but they are based on the same conversation. I cut some parts from both, especially from the written version, since it got quite long.

Colleen does not have a website, but you can send her a check and she will mail books to you directly. Each book is $8.95 ($0.72 sales tax for New York residents); the 3-book set is $26.85 ($2.15 for New York residents). Shipping is $3.50 for the first book and $.25 for each additional book.

Colleen is offering you two specials:

• Buy the set of three, mention Katrina Lee, and get 10% off your purchase ($24.17 +$1.93 for NY residents)
• Buy a total of 5 books mix and match (get several for gifts!) before March 11th and get free shipping in addition to 10% off.

Mail your check to

Read to Me

2144 Stokes Rd.

Lyons, NY 14489

Get your check to her before March 11th for the discounts!

If you can’t listen to the audio version, here is most of the conversation written down.

Colleen Musser Interview

Or read the transcript below –

Katrina Lee 

Tell us what are the names of the books that you have now? And a little bit about what they are.

Colleen 

Okay, so the first book is Maple Syrup: Spring’s First Treat. And then Apple Cider: a Sip of Autumn and Honey: Summer’s Golden Sweetness. They just tell they pretty much explain the process of making or getting those things through the eyes of children.

Katrina Lee 

All right, so you have the three, the three books, but now, tell me why did you decide to write these or where did that idea come from?

Sorrow

Colleen 

The idea for this particular series is not actually very old. I was about three and a half years ago. My husband and I were excited to think we might be adding a child to our home. And 15 weeks into our pregnancy, the midwife couldn’t find a heartbeat.

Katrina Lee 

Oh, wow. Had you been sick?

Colleen 

Yes, really sick. It felt like it was pointless. Right. And the days following that, well, I had my heart set on children. I love children. I was the second oldest in a family of 12 children. And I had taught school for six years prior to getting married. And my life just felt like it was childless. So the days following the miscarriage were pretty dark. I felt like I didn’t have much to smile about. I’m sure my life was still a lot easier than then hard lives. But it felt hard to me.

Katrina Lee 

Would you say that you are the type of person that got depressed easily in the past or was this like a new thing for you to feel like this?

Colleen 

I would say that I am. The type of person that is very happy when I’m happy and very sad when I’m sad.

Katrina Lee 

In other words, you’re a creative person. That’s what that sounds like to me. Okay. Yeah.

Success (but first, work!)

Colleen 

My family has always tried to do a lot of things hands on. My dad thought that was a good experience for us children, right. It helped us see how things work the process. Every year we would meet with his his extended family and go to a local apple orchard and pick apple drops and take them to a nearby cider press and make cider. Once a lot of cousins were married, the group just got too large and we quit the tradition. But several years later, my sister and I were talking about it that we really need to do this for our immediate family. So we found a local apple orchard with apple drops that we could pick and went to the to the same cider mill that we went through growing up.

Katrina Lee 

And that is the one that’s pictured in your book? I love those photos.

Colleen 

It is the one pictured. And the nieces and nephews were just so impressed. They could not figure out how these apples are going to turn into a juice we can drink. Right? I said to my sisters I need to write a book about this. I was still dealing with the miscarriage.

Colleen 

And they said, “You need to do that.” They just kept getting after me. I mentioned it to a writer friend. I hadn’t done much writing in the past. I’d been busy with everything I enjoyed doing. And my husband said, “Well, why don’t you try it? A small children’s book really can involve that much.”

Katrina Lee 

Yeah, right. That’s really neat. I just want to say right there that I think that is really neat that your husband encouraged you and I think you said that he knew that you were kind of going through a hard time mean as well, that you thought this might help you.

Colleen 

Yes. He thought this would get my mind on a project. Right and off the empty crib.

Katrina Lee 

Right. Yeah.

Colleen 

I had this vague dream of writing a children’s book. We had a book as a child, there was a book I really loved. I don’t remember the title. It was about a girl with a lamb and it had real photographs. And so I had this vague dream that someday when I’m older and smarter, I would maybe try something like that.

Katrina Lee 

So did you just kind of plunge in? I mean, this was a couple years ago, you said right.

Colleen 

I plunged in recklessly. I started out with asking my sister if her family would pose as my story people, right. And then I actually dug out a half-used notebook a leftover from my teaching career. I didn’t have a computer even. And I scratched the first draft on paper with a lead pencil. The next days and weeks I rewrote and read it aloud to myself in my quiet empty house.

So once I got my story to the best of my ability, I asked one of my writer friends to edit it. And she was happy to do that. But she advised me to hire an editor who specializes in editing.

Katrina Lee 

That’s great advice.

Colleen 

I agreed. I didn’t want an inferior book, right.

Katrina Lee 

Yeah. So how did you find it?

Colleen 

I got in contact with an editor and she talked back and forth with me to see what my project actually is. And it really fascinated her. So she’s like, sure she’ll do the editing for me. We agreed on a price and she said with children’s books she doesn’t edit without the photos. So like I need to have my photos.

Katrina Lee 

So how did you find your photographer then? Like, I would say your photos are very good.

Colleen 

Yeah, so I needed a photographer. So I called one of my friends that dabbled in photography, and explained to her what I’m doing and she said, “Yeah, I would love to be on a project like that.”

But we were both a little impatient. So instead of waiting another year till we have apple season again. Let’s back up… Word leaked out into the community that I was working at a children’s book and this was so fascinating to my church community. And they wanted to know when the first book will be done and just a lot of things. And they said, “You need to do a series like apple cider, maple syrup, one on honey and wheat bread.”

So we decided we will work on the maple syrup one. Maple syrup season was coming up. So I called a church family that made maple syrup. We got the story written and the pictures taken.

Katrina Lee 

And what year was that?

Colleen 

Let’s see. I think it was in 2021. I started writing my book in 2020.

Colleen 

I talked with my husband about publishing. And people told me you won’t find a publisher for a book with photographs. The publishers nowadays they’re not interested in that. Other people said no self-publishing costs a lot of money, you’re risking losing money. You don’t know if your books are going to sell.

Katrina Lee 

Right? Well, both of those things are could be true.

Colleen 

I asked my husband, “What should I do?” He said, “Well, you’re loving this project you would choose to self-publish.” I said, “Of course, but the money. Where would I get that?” He said, “From me, I’ll fund you. I can’t imagine it will cost much.” How wrong we were again.

Katrina Lee 

Yeah, projects like this always just mushroom.

Colleen 

They certainly do. I said, “Well, what if the book doesn’t sell?” He said he likes what it’s doing to me. I’m happier. I’m busy. I was enjoying children that helped. They were so excited about this book and what I’m going to write next. And so we decided we’re going to pursue self-publishing.

I hired a designer. I made some phone calls and my husband got me a computer because he thought, we’re getting deep into this project. We need a little technology to simplify things right.

Katrina Lee 

I think sometimes people make the mistake of just trying to do everything without getting a lot of advice and that that’s where self-publishing often doesn’t end up well.

Colleen 

The designer, I explained to her what I want. She did amazing. She took our pictures and when I showed the book to the family that posed, they said, “Well, that hardly looks like us.”

Katrina Lee 

Oh, that’s great. Yeah, that’s a sign of a good a good designer.

Colleen 

So we shuffled the book back and forth between the designer and the editor. My simple little book dream disappeared in a haze of decisions. If you’re self-publishing, you have to decide everything decide the book, cover or hardcover. What kind of paper. The binding. I called quite a few print shops and got quotes and numbers and suddenly this innocent hobby, needed a sizable chunk of money.

But my husband’s like, “Well, we can’t hang the project up now. Everybody put time and effort into this. I said I’ll fund you, so I’ll fund you.”

So we finally narrowed it down to a print shop and in a few weeks, we picked up my stack of books. It was exciting to pull the first book out and scary to look at this heap of books we’re planning to bring home and this was just brand new. We mailed our flyers to stores and stopped by local stores and sold books straight from our home to local people.

Katrina Lee 

You have a son now? You had a pregnancy in here somewhere too.

Colleen 

He was born in December of 2001.

Katrina Lee 

Yeah. So then since then, besides taking care of the baby, the apple cider book came out and then also the what is the third one I’m not thinking? Oh, the honey one.

Surrender

Colleen 

Honey and the apple cider book actually came out close together. We were hoping to do a book every year until we have our series finish. Right. And then we were asked to go to Haiti on mission work. And I knew I shouldn’t put a hobby before the Lord’s work. I knew that.

I said to my husband, “What about my books?” And he said, “Well, if you focus on your third book I think we can get it on the market before we would need to leave.” And then my sister said she would sell them for me while we’re on the mission field. We’re hoping to leave in May or June of 2023.

Katrina Lee 

Okay, and you are expecting another baby?

Colleen 

In a couple of weeks. We’re busy. We look back to the days when we didn’t have any children and we’re like wow, were we supposed to rest for this time?

Katrina Lee 

Right. What kind of emotions did you deal with? I’m totally in support of you going? I think you’re absolutely right about putting the Lord’s work first. But did you have any other any other thoughts on that?

Colleen 

It was definitely not easy. I had to work through it. And look at it in the light of eternity. This fourth book coming out the fourth year is not as important as spreading God’s word.

We committed to serve a year. And that’s, we’ll see how it goes. Yeah, and we might be there several years. The last book of the series might just be like a surprise child at the end of the family.

Katrina Lee

I wish you the best with your ventures and your new baby coming and heading for Haiti. God bless you with that. Obviously, we know it’s not the safest place but I guess they say that you’re safer in God’s will than anywhere else.