How to Captivate Audiences and Own the Future of Marketing: Storytelling with Adam Wallace

Adam: [00:00:00] So in kids books, it's, you know, a kid wants something or gets something, they get it, they lose it, they get it back again. And it can kind of be that simple. I'll have a bit of an idea of structure, but generally what I'll do is I'll, I'll just write the whole thing out and I don't plan my stories, like I'll have an idea of a point in the story and usually the ending and the main character and I'll just write and I'll see.

And to me I find that more exciting because characters appear that you don't expect and it takes twists that you don't expect and it can lead to dead ends, but I'll just write that way and then once I've finished it, I'll go back and my structure starts then.

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Allan: Welcome to the Lean Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Allan Dib. And with me today, I've got a very special guest. It's Adam Wallace. He's an author, but he's not the typical author we've had on podcasts before. He's a children's author. [00:01:00] He's extremely prolific and he's an incredible storyteller. I recently had a chance to hang out with him and we shot back ideas back and forth.

And the reason I'm having him on the show is because. My biggest theme this year is to become a world class storyteller. I believe storytelling is going to be the number one skill of every marketer, every entrepreneur going forward, because almost everything we sell are commodities. So the stories we tell in our content, in our marketing, in our businesses, in our sales calls are really going to dictate our success.

So welcome to the show, Adam.

Adam: Thanks so much, Allan. It's great to be here. And yeah, it was awesome the other day, throwing around ideas. We could have gone for another couple of hours, I think.

Allan: I had a great time with you, man. So who are you and, you know, what have you done? Just give the audience here the little recap about you and who you are and, and what you do.

Adam: The little elevator pitch. So yeah, so I do, as you said, I [00:02:00] write children's books and I wrote my, first story in 1999. 25 years ago now. And, And then it was six years after that, that I first self published. And then, through various things, it was about another ten years before I got my first traditional publishing deal.

And, yeah, I've just basically, I've just written every day. I hadn't written since high school for about ten years when I started writing. And, as soon as I wrote that first story, good or not, it just exploded something in me. And so, I've basically written every day since then. And people say to me, oh, how are you so disciplined to write every day? And it's kind of the opposite, it's, I've got to have discipline to stop writing, to do other stuff and live out in the world kind of thing, so. Yeah, so I wrote, so I've been lucky enough to since then I've had around 180 ish books published now I think, and

Allan: Wow, that, that is just incredible as someone who's done. Two books and been exhausted by the process. I mean, 180 just seems [00:03:00] unfathomable.

Adam: True, but you, I mean you just remember like one of those books was 50 words as well, so some of them were a little shorter. Although in saying that 50 word book. was actually one of the hardest ones I've ever had to do. It was for a publisher and so five double page spreads, ten words on each page.

And it had to be this complete story that would entertain two year olds and it took me weeks. I just, I couldn't actually get my head around it. So, even in terms of storytelling, often the things we think are easier, are not as easy, especially if you're trying to force it into a little box, as opposed to just naturally and authentically saying it.

Allan: I agree. I totally agree. So you have probably got the most difficult audience to tell a story to, don't you? I mean, like, you know, adults have at least some attention span, but your Telling stories to children, right? Who have almost no attention span and it's very difficult to keep their attention.

So what are some of the key elements [00:04:00] when it comes to really crafting a story that, you know, compels someone to listen to and compel someone to follow? How do you go about the whole process? So, you've done this at least 180 times. So. 181st time are you sitting looking at a blank page?

Have you already got an idea? If you've already got an idea, where did you get that idea? How did you get started?

Adam: it's a really good question. And even with the audience thing it's, also have a bit of tact as well, whereas if kids like it, you know, but if they don't like it, you know as well. Where, I remember one time, I used to work in a before and after care at a school, and.

I would just sort of take my stuff in on a bit of paper and I'd trial it on the kids. This was before it had even been published at all. And at one time I had like five kids in front of me. Five kids who knew me and liked me. I started reading this story. It was one page long. It was like 300 words.

Halfway through, two of them didn't even look at each other. Just both stood up and walked off to do something else. So they can be brutal. But it's good. You know where you stand. And when they like it, as you [00:05:00] say, the attention span can be tricky but when they're into it, kids are just the most loyal, excitable, enthusiastic, amazing audience that you can have as well.

So, so getting that connection with them is really important. And it's a really interesting question about the 181st story. And even in saying that, so I've actually written over 4, 000 stories over the years to get those 180 books. So it's a bit like, I guess, A comedian, you know, writes hours of material for a 15 minute stand up set or, you know, a sprinter runs thousands and thousands of kilometres to run that 100 metre, 10 second race.

So, just constantly writing and, I think the more that you do it, the more you do anything, the more you write, the more you embrace ideas and follow ideas, even if you're not sure if they're good or bad, just the more ideas come up. I've got on my fridge over there, I've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Seven ideas just written down on my fridge of ideas of movies I could write or books I could write. And so again, it's almost that discipline of not writing every [00:06:00] day. It's a, discipline of what idea am I going to take on? Because ideas are everywhere. I've had ideas from, I've heard a song and one line in the song I was like, Oh, that'd be such a cool moment in a movie if that song was playing, that line right then.

And then worked. the story to get to that point and then work out what would happen afterwards. So, I very rarely sit down without an idea, I think. And I generally won't sit down to write a story unless I haven't got an idea. That's not to say I won't write. So I'll do a lot of free writing and stream of consciousness writing and journaling and all that sort of morning pages, all that sort of thing as well.

So, always writing in some form. And then as you do that, It just feels like the ideas just pop in when you are, and as we were doing the other week just chatting and going, Oh, how about this? How about this? Oh, this is silly. And just suddenly something will click. And so it's interesting because the story I'm working on at the moment, and again, this is 25 years in, and 4, [00:07:00] 000 stories and 180 books, and I've, never been more excited about a story than the one I'm working on right now, and that's kind of thrilling that you can still get that after this time.

I just want to kind of double click on the story and framework that you use. So, I'm similar. I never sit down to a blank page. I want a big idea, whether I'm writing an article, a book or whatever. What's the big idea? And then I want to have at least a few big solid points that I want to make, you know, if it's a book, it might be the outline of the chapters, or if it's an article, it's like the key things I want to the key, big ideas.

Allan: And then some of the sub ideas. And so I feel like it's kind of like. Filling in the gaps when you're writing rather than sitting, staring at a, blinking cursor. But one thing I wanted to ask is, all right, so it's one thing to have a big idea but do you have a framework around story?

Do you have like, okay, here's a good story begins progresses and ends. You know, there's, there's a lot of different [00:08:00] storytelling frameworks like there's in business, like there's story brand or like in movies, there's like the hero's journey and things like that. Is there a storytelling framework that you use or how do you think about that?

Adam: Yeah, it varies a little bit in that if I'm writing a picture book, it might be different to writing a longer chapter book or a novel for kids. But even then it can be similar as well and there's some really simple frameworks. So with, some of these how to catch books basically.

Allan: just for a bit of context, you're, you're the author of a series called how to catch, how to catch a unicorn, how to catch a, a um,

Adam: and how to catch a mermaid and a dinosaur. I did, I did about 13 in the end and there's, someone else is writing them now and they're still going, I think they're up to about 20 something things they're trying to catch now. In fact I think, I'm not sure when, people will hear this, but I just saw on the New York Times bestseller list.

We're getting towards Valentine's Day and How to Catch a Loversaurus is on the bestseller list. It's not one of mine, but it's on there. So, [00:09:00] yeah, so they're just really cool fun books and basically that's a really simple set up at the start. Escalating traps just getting bigger and bigger and then the character gets away.

But that's that's the storyline of those and the structure and it's the same in each one. Just so kids love that repetition and that feeling of comfort in seeing. Knowing almost what's coming without knowing what's coming and so yeah so that, that's a similar line but yeah there's, simple ones like, there's a book called How to Write Movies for Fun and Profit and the fun end is crossed out and it's by the guys who did Night at the Museum among other movies and they, have one they say three act structure.

Act one, put someone up a tree. Act two, throw rocks at them. Act three, get them down. And we overcomplicate things sometimes, and it can be that simple. And, And obviously within that there's complexities and things, and Kurt Vonnegut talks about this in this, there's a great YouTube clip called The Shape of Stories by Kurt Vonnegut.

And he shows all different ones, but one is, he calls it Man in a Hole. And he's like, doesn't have to [00:10:00] be a man, doesn't have to be a hole. But basically, there's, starts off a normal day, he falls down a hole, he gets out. So it's a similar thing and then there's boy meets girl. But again, doesn't have to be boy meets girl.

So in kids books, it's, you know, a kid wants something or gets something, they get it, they lose it, they get it back again. And it can kind of be that simple. so I'll generally have a bit of an idea, picture books I do, longer ones, I'll have a bit of an idea of structure, but generally what I'll do is I'll, I'll just write the whole thing out and I don't plan my stories, like I'll have an idea of a point in the story and usually the ending and the main character and I'll just write and I'll see.

And to me I find that more exciting because characters appear that you don't expect and it takes twists that you don't expect and it can lead to dead ends, but I'll just write that way and then once I've finished it, I'll go back and my structure starts then. So. I'll often do a scene breakdown, and every scene in the book I'll look at what happens, why is it there, what's funny in it, [00:11:00] what characters and things like that, is it a positive or negative turning point for the main character, and do that.

And then there's, the Hero's Journey is one I'll look at, but there's a similar one, the Dan Harmon Story Circle. And yeah, it's sort of eight steps, whereas the Hero's Journey, well there's a twelve, twelve step thing, but I think it's about forty something, the original one. The Dan Hummer one is eight, and I'll often go through and just kind of look at if I've hit those points through the story, and that, especially what I'm working on now, that really helped clarify, I'm like, oh, he has to have that, so one part is a false victor or a false defeat, where it feels like everything's lost, but it's actually, that moment is going to help them win, or it feels like they've won, but it's actually about to be before, you know, the big fall, and so I didn't have that, so putting that in was really handy, So often my structural edit will come after I've written the first draft.

I'll go back.

Allan: That's really, really cool. And in terms of keeping attention is it. You trying to be a patent [00:12:00] interrupt or what are your best strategies in your writing, in your storytelling that really helps keep people's attention? Cause I saw this you doing this in person, really like you had spoken to a group of authors, so they're all, peers.

They're all very high level people. And, you know, you were really able to keep their attention. And cause you were doing kind of. different stuff. You weren't just like speaking or telling ideas or whatever. You got them involved. You got them doing kind of different exercises. So I'd love to hear how some of your strategies, both in written word and in speaking, because I know you speak to a lot of these kids as well keeping attention and keeping people focused because as a speaker, that's something that's super interesting to me.

It's something that. I really want to master as well. So, you know, sometimes when you're speaking for an hour, hour and a half, you can see sometimes the energy's dropping, you know, all that sort of thing. And I think you've really mastered the art of really keeping people's attention.

Adam: [00:13:00] it can be quite different speaking and in stories, but similar at the same time. And When speaking and presenting to kids, one of the biggest things was get them involved. Get them interacting or, and I think with adults as well, I mean adults are really just big kids, right?

And so get them interacting or doing something and so I'll do a lot of things with kids where I'll talk about how I've written a particular story and might talk about a technique like it might be exaggeration or something like that. And I'll say, okay, this is something that happened to me. How can we exaggerate it?

And then we'll just start back and forth in those ideas. And the kids They love that, and they find themselves hilarious. And what's great is they'll say something funny, and then suddenly jokes that I'll tell become funnier, because they're already laughing and in that mode. And so, that was a game changer when I realized that.

I used to just go in and just literally do a talk for 45 minutes. And I did it about 3 or 4 times. I remember at one stage doing the talk, it was pretty funny and pretty interesting, but in my mind I'm just like, Oh my God, this is It's boring me to [00:14:00] tears, and so I dread to think what the kids were thinking, but, and then I saw another author, Andy Griffiths, and he gave a presentation, and he, it was hundreds of kids, he literally walked out and he said, and it was for his new book, and he's like, Today's Father's Day, and I got a cut from my, daughter, and it says, World's Greatest Father.

What's it mean to be the world's greatest father? And the kids are like, Oh, and then he like, back and forth to them on that, and I'm just like, they're so into it, and that changed how I present it. So, from then on, it's Always getting them involved. as I did with you as well, I get them drawing and doing little pictures and we do drawing challenges and so giving them that sense of ownership, I guess, over a little bit or that possibly that they've got to stay alert in case they get called on.

And so if they do and they've got nothing, then that's going to be hard for them. So, and also they just, especially. In primary schools up to 9, 10, 11 years old, they just want to, like, they're busting to say something, and so if you can get them involved, otherwise their mind's going to be wandering to other things anyway, and [00:15:00] so that was big, getting them, being interactive, but then the other big thing was realizing that no matter what I do, and no matter how amazing my session is, and how attention grabbing it is, there's going to be some kids that just Or people that just could not care less.

And their, their minds are going to wander and they're going to be bored, and I used to have the thing where if I saw a kid who looked bored, I'd be just like I'm going to get you by the end of this session, and you're going to be loving it, and you're going to think it's the best. And I would focus on this one kid, and what I realised is I'm kind of then ignoring the 25 other kids who might be totally into it.

And so realising that some kids are just going to be bored. And I may not get them on board, and then I would just, I would focus on the kids loving it and if old, little, bawdy kid comes along, that's great, but if not, as long as he's quiet, or she's quiet, usually he, then it doesn't matter, like, that's fine, he can sit there and not, and sometimes they'll say, oh, do I have to draw this picture, and I'll just go, nah, [00:16:00] couldn't care less, like, you'll miss out on something really cool, but no, you don't have to at all.

But then, and often they will, when they see the other kids doing it, they'll join in anyway. So, I think just taking that pressure off them having to be entertained and engaged, and taking the pressure off me having to entertain because you realize that you can't entertain. There's a lot of stuff I don't like, so why should I expect 500 kids in a day to all like the thing that I'm doing?

And you want to still want to get most of them, but Realising that really took the pressure off and so that freed me up as well. Then just to kind of play and not force it. And I've done a lot of improvised comedy courses as well. And that was really helpful. So if a joke doesn't land, it's alright. Go to the next one.

Doesn't matter. As opposed to trying to go, Oh, that was really funny. Why aren't you laughing? And the same with the books. So writing stuff in books that I'm just like, This is the funniest thing I've ever written. [00:17:00] But Some kids just don't like it and it's like, no, but it's funny because of this and they're like, no, we get it We just don't think it's funny and so I think just taking that pressure off and just being authentic and in both cases in the writing and the presenting and just putting stories out that You know and I test my work as well and so which I didn't use to but now I've started testing it and just seeing and getting a bit of a Consensus.

Oh, that's kind of working. Okay, I'm going to follow that direction. It's really helpful. So, yeah, I think the interaction, the pressure off that you're not going to entertain everyone and then just writing what you love and what you enjoy and following that story and then hoping there's enough people who like the same thing.

Yep.

Allan: that energy definitely transfers as well. So you know, I've I've done speaking where I'm kind of like a little bit stressed out or not feeling well or whatever. And then if you. Change your energy to, all right, it's time to have a little [00:18:00] bit of fun or whatever.

It works so much better than, all right, let's just get through this or whatever. So I've I've done both. If you were speaking to an adult audience and I'm asking this selfishly because I do speak to adult audiences all the time. What are some of the best sort of practical breakouts and workshops and things that you can do?

Because a lot of times the. You know, if you do a breakout session where you're going to get them to do an exercise or whatever, sometimes it feels like, you know, they'll get into like chatting mode or they'll be checking their email or whatever, or, or that sort of thing.

do you care about that? Or how do you get them to. Have fun, focus. Like what would be a good breakout session kind of thing that you could do to an adult audience if you're Allan Dib, someone similar

Adam: For example.

Allan: or whatever. Yeah.

Adam: that thing of, doesn't matter and not. Do you, do we want to force them to do it or do we want [00:19:00] them to do it because it's fun and we know it, we, when we know, we generally feel that it's going to be helpful for them if they do the exercise or if they do listen and, but if they miss out is that okay as well, like they, they miss out.

So that, that's it, but it's really tricky because you do want to keep everyone engaged. So again, for me, often it is just, it is bringing that energy a little bit, I think is really. really good, especially at the start, because if, if you're sort of flat at the start and then there's a chance they're going to go straight to their phones and in that way I think sometimes adults can almost be harder than kids because kids are going to almost give you that 10 minutes at the start and if you lose them then they might be rolling around on the ground and or talking to their mate but adults, especially if they've got their phones That ten minutes can be two minutes, so you've got to get them, you've got to get them pretty quick.

So I think getting them engaged pretty quickly or, you know, even starting with a funny story. And that's where the [00:20:00] storytelling comes in, I think, of introducing Of getting yourself there, but doing it in the way of a story that they can either relate to or that is a bit entertaining. They're going to go, Oh, we'll give them another couple of minutes.

This is pretty good. And then if you can start making a little bit interactive, I find that is the best. And getting them contributing quite early is really good.

Allan: Do you think exercises with like where two people, like, cause typically whenever I'm speaking and I think that's probably typical of most speakers, you know, there'll be people maybe like six at a table or something like that. And so what I've been doing is saying, Hey, work with the partner next to you.

First you do that, then, then they do that. Like. Is that the way that you would do it? Or would you do like an exercise where all six do something? Or, how would you approach that?

Adam: It's a really good one. And, because often when I'm seeing kids, you often do have I've had some sessions this year which were up to about 600 kids and [00:21:00] so often it's just an exercise we're all just going to do together. Especially a drawing one, we're all just going to draw it. So drawing's a little bit easier where they're just drawing their thing but they can still sort of show and talk and look at each other's work.

But I've been doing quite a few things with kids, and older kids and younger adults as well, where we're doing, a friend of mine and I are doing, it's writing and improvised comedy combined. And that improv comedy is great because A lot of it is just about loosening people up and just getting them relaxed and feeling okay to, that there's not pressure.

So I think one of the biggest things I've found was doing an exercise with people, whether in pairs or the group of six, is that here's what we're doing, here's what we're trying to do, but if you happen to get it wrong, whatever that means, or you don't quite get the result you want or you stumble over your words, improv what we do is just go again and you do it again and you realize that it doesn't matter and suddenly the prep you see people just oh, I don't have to get it perfect because again as adults We don't we want [00:22:00] to get things perfect.

We want to get it right first time and we don't want to look silly in front of everyone. And so I think often I would go to that either just in pairs or small groups. As opposed to, you know, someone coming up to the front and being in front of everyone. Because that can be very stressful. And that, that might happen later.

Once they're a bit relaxed and into it and realise it's a safe environment. So I think creating that safe environment, it's okay to fail, it's okay to play, that, to me, has been the biggest thing. And I find that is often best starting in the small groups and then building up to the, maybe the larger groups from that.

That little one on one, or doing something on your own, and then in pairs, and then in maybe a larger group. I've just found is the easiest way to build it, as opposed to going, All right, all six of you are going to do this, and then you're going to present it to us afterwards. That just freaks people out.

And I was listening to a talk this morning, actually, with Chase Jarvis, and he was, yeah, with Gary Vee, and they were talking about like, if you're with a group of, I don't know, let's say six year olds or seven year olds, and you're like, who's [00:23:00] got a story they want to tell? It's like, you know. 30 hands will go up out of 30 kids.

But if you're with a group of 17 year olds, you're like, who's got a story they want to tell? You are lucky to get one hand go up. Like it just, it just changes as it goes along. And so, so taking that into account and saying what's a low pressure way we can start this and build in to people feel safe.

And often even with older kids, I often say, are there any questions before we start? And just not a hand goes up. At all. And then you do the session, and you go, Any questions? And then suddenly there's 25 questions. And they had those questions at the start, they just did not want to be the first one to do it.

So I think, once you get into it, make them feel safe, make them feel relaxed, then they'll come out of their shells.

Allan: nice. Um, From a um, storytelling perspective, and you've written like 180 stories I guess. First of all, like what have your breakout hits been and why do you think that they were the hit stories sort of thing? So maybe, so we're talking about your how [00:24:00] to catch a whatever series. I think you've had some others.

What would have been some of your best ones and what do you think have been the factors that have made them so successful?

Adam: It's such a good question and such a hard one to answer where there's this great book by William Goldman who wrote The Princess Bride and lots of other amazing movies and books. And it's a book on screenwriting and the first thing is, pretty much the first thing he says is, the first thing you need to know about Hollywood is no one knows what they're doing.

If they did, every movie would be a blockbuster. And so you have this sort of idea about what's going to work but it's no guarantee it's going to work. With the How to Catch, I think it was a combination of things. And it wasn't my concept, it was the publisher's concept, but it's a really good concept.

Kids trying to catch mythical creatures. I think the illustrations are amazing, the stories are kind of fun. And, that one it built up really well. So we released How to Catch a Leprechaun, and that did pretty well. Then there was How to Catch a Tooth Fairy, which kind of flopped. And then there was How to Catch an Elf released that, in that [00:25:00] same year, so it was three in the same year.

And then How to Catch an Elf did very well, which then brought sort of more attention back to How to Catch a Leprechaun for the following year's St. Patrick's Day. And then How to Catch, I'm going to guess, Unicorn, it was around then, came out. And so when that came out, there was suddenly this attention, and that's when it kind of took off, and the unicorn.

And everyone loves unicorns. That kind of took off and went crazy. And then that just gave the momentum to everything else. So that consistency in release, and I think we did three a year for the first, maybe even three years. And so we're bringing them out really quickly for books, like especially kids books.

It can often be, from the time a manuscript's accepted, it can be two years before that book comes out.

Allan: So what, what, why do you think a unicorn would, would be a big hit and a tooth fairy would be a flop?

Adam: Well, it's interesting because they started with obviously the sort of celebration. So Leprechaun was for St. Patrick's Day. Elf was for, oh no, we did the Easter Bunny. Sorry. Was the one at the start of the next year with Easter. So we did those celebrator ones and the tooth [00:26:00] fairy maybe at the time just didn't fit into that.

I mean these are for young, these are aimed at three to seven year olds, but maybe it's at an age where. Kids aren't into the Tooth Fairy, like I don't know how quickly that changes or something, I'm not sure, but Poor little Tooth Fairy, they're just, like the others are sold so many, and it's on like, I don't even know, like it's like 10 percent of what the others are kind of selling, and So, I don't know, but the unicorn, I think unicorn appeals in a way to all genders as well, which I think really helps.

And appeals to a range of ages as well, I mean, adults love unicorns too, and So that, that helps too, and yeah, it's, I think maybe Santa's somehow getting a specific thing that has a bit of a broader appeal. Maybe helps. And it also had the momentum of the other things as well, I think. Whereas the Tooth Fairy didn't.

So maybe if it had come out five books later, it might have done okay. I don't know. Maybe it was just a really badly written story. Who knows? 100%.

Allan: [00:27:00] timing really, really matters and I, I don't know whether, you know even books that have been massively successful, had they come out at a different point in time, it would have been a different result as well. So yeah,

Adam: you can't pick it. Like it's, often just

Allan: yeah, it's hard.

Adam: I think you just, you just bring it out when it comes out and you hope for the best in a way that is the right time. And you see some books that didn't do much for a year or two and then suddenly exploded. And it's like, well why?

It's because it was the right time.

Allan: Right time. Yeah. So what have been some other series that have worked well, apart from How to Catch?

Adam: So I had to catch the big one and then in Australia, the biggest one here has been, and you may have an idea of why this one worked, it's called Fart Boy. So, yeah, that was a pretty subtle one, that came out. And I actually came, speaking of ideas and getting ideas on what you sit down to write, that came from when someone at the publisher heard a song called Arty Boy.

I can't remember who sang it, but they're like, we'd love to do a book called Farty Boy, and [00:28:00] it ended up becoming Fart Boy. And so, and that, that became a nine book series with some spin offs as well. It was Fart Boy at high school, and that was Fart Club. First rule of Fart Club is you don't talk about Fart Club. So we had that, and then some ones for younger kids, farty pets. So that was a really good one. That was really fun to write. And the illustrator in that is one of my best friends as well. So working on that together was, that was really fun and that, that did really well here. And then the other biggest one is through, it's actually through Hooray Heroes.

And so it's in many countries. So in Australia it's hooray heroes.com au and hooray heroes.com in the US and things like that. But basically they're these personalised books, and they broke the mould a little bit. And a lot about the publishing industry is we do it as we've always done it type thing.

And they're like, we're going to start this whole new thing. And so it's a personalised book where, say for example, there was a Christmas one. And I wrote 30 short poems, and the kid's name would be in all the poems. It would come [00:29:00] up so that people could put their name and it would appear in the poems.

People would choose 10 stories that they wanted in their book. But you could also personalise how the main character looks. So it could look like the kid that you were getting it for. And so you could do brown hair, blue eyes, glasses, freckles, hairstyles, skin tone, all these different things. And different ethnicities they brought in as well.

And the illustrations are, they're beautiful. They're just these amazing illustrations. So, and it would come in this, it was like, It was about, I think it was about 45 or 50 US. So about, you know, 80 Australian. They were expensive books, but they came in this beautiful hardcover, in this box with the kid's picture on the front, and the name, and the, you know, stuff on it.

So just these beautiful things and they just went game busters. And they advertised a lot through social media, which wasn't as much done. This was 2018 when I first started working with them, and so they really sort of did things differently, and also they'd get the order. So they'd get the order and the payment and then would [00:30:00] print the book.

So they're getting paid before the book comes out. So it was a really good business model, amazing marketing. They now do picture books mostly for adults actually. So these personalised picture books like a, there's a Valentine's Day one, which I think is 10 ways I love you or 10 reasons I love you. And there's 10 little stories and those stories are personalised and they personalise the pictures of the adults as well.

And you can have a Grandparent and a kid in the book as well. So, yeah, they're really, really cool. Really amazing books.

Allan: Cool. All right, love to know your thoughts on self publishing versus traditional publishing, because you've done both and I've spoken to a lot of authors, you know, some people have done self published, some done traditional, some have done hybrid.

I've mostly done hybrid publishing, but. Again, I think it's different in different spaces. There are fiction books, nonfiction books, and there are pros and cons of both. What's been your experience between going professionally or [00:31:00] not necessarily professionally, but traditionally published versus self published?

Adam: Well, sometimes they are more professional when they're professionally published, traditionally published, but not always. And that was a big thing I got taught straight away from a guy I met, Ewan Mitchell. And he had a book called Self Publishing Made Simple, I think. And that was, the book I used when I first self published as my sort of bible on self publishing.

And, And one of the first thing he, he says is, make it look like a professional book. Like, you don't want to tell the difference between a self published book and a traditionally published book. So I You don't need a barcode, get a barcode. You don't, well, and it was different then, but that was before sort of Amazon and things like that, and but at that stage, like, you don't need an ISBN, get an ISBN.

Make it look like, you don't need to do an imprint page, do an imprint page. Like, do, set it up the way that they set it up, so that if it's in a bookstore, no one can tell the difference. Get it printed by a professional printer, and things like that, so. So that was really good, but in terms of the difference, there definitely is pros [00:32:00] and cons to both ways.

I've found those series that have gone, that have sold more copies for me, have been through traditional publishers, or through publishers. But my self published ones have been amazing, especially for school visits. And I guess with any speaker, like the sort of back of room sales and things like that, the self published ones are fantastic for that.

I can do different deals for the kids. and a lot of my series that I've self published were ones that just got rejected by everyone anyway. So if I was going to bring them out I had to self publish them and I've got a series of How to Draw Books which is where we did the drawing from that and kids love them but they just didn't suit what traditional publishers wanted for bookstores.

But when I'm going out and selling them in schools, they're perfect. So, so I think Fitting it to the different situations is really handy but the one I'm working on now, I'm going to self publish just because again Publishers, or my agent, we had a different idea on what this book could be and Certain bits that [00:33:00] he wasn't sure about were bits that I love the most and I'm just like, well I think I'll just do this one myself and it's been such an amazing journey.

So I think there is that sort of an ownership It's just That excitement of being part of that creative, collaborative process, which you do get through a traditional publisher, but it's a bit different. I mean, the biggest difference is that you're doing everything yourself. If you're, if you do self publish, basically, I mean, not everything, I'm getting an illustrator in and a designer and all those sorts of things but you're doing a lot of the legwork and the pushing yourself.

But even with traditional publishers these days, you are expected to do a lot of. of that marketing and promotion anyway. So, the hardest thing I've found is, if it's important, and it may not be important to a lot of people, is getting it into physical bookstores if you're self published, like getting a distributor and getting it into actual bookstores, or whether you do it yourself going around, which I tried with my first self published book, and it was exhausting.

Like, once you travel and you speak to the people in [00:34:00] the bookstore, and You show 'em the book and you do this, you do then show it's often an hour per bookstore and they might take three or four books. And so it's very slow. So I just found that wasn't worth it for me to do it, do the legwork. But if a distributor's taken it out, that's fantastic.

And these days, obviously the bookstore can, is online often, so it's, but it's great to have your book in physical bookstores, especially kids' books or when you're doing talks, because if you do a talk and either you're not selling it then, or the kids can't get it then, or the people can't get it, then.

They're going to look online or they're going to go to their local bookstore and they're going to get it from there. So that's probably the biggest difference is a publisher is going to get it, well, potentially get it into bookstores.

Allan: are the bookstores more important for like kids books versus say adult books or I feel like Amazon is like the powerhouse in terms of adult books. But how is it for, for children's books or is it the same?

Adam: Amazon is huge for children's books. I know a lot of [00:35:00] people who have sold thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of kids books through Amazon and gone really well. But again, it's such an interesting thing where you're writing for the kids but selling to the parents a lot of the time. And so if it's through Amazon, you're not selling to the kids through Amazon, it's to the buyers.

Like, kids aren't, I don't think, going through Amazon looking for the next book they want to read. So, in terms of fulfilment, that's why I love doing the school visits and selling, presenting to the kids and then it's marketing the, books and myself to the kids, is that face to face and going direct to the audience.

Because often kids are the, It's not even the, just the selling, they're 10th in line a lot with a book being created because, you know, I'll write it as an adult, it'll go to a publisher who adults, they may show it to their own kids, but often, rarely not, they'll decide whether they'll take it, an adult will edit it, design it, illustrate it, it goes to the adults who market it, to the adults at the bookstores who sell it to the adults, and kids are like 10th on the list, and it's like, we don't even know if they're going to like it until It's done, and it's in the shops.

[00:36:00] So, getting out to the schools and working with the kids is just the best market research that you can get. So, I find selling direct to kids is amazing. And again, they've got to go home and convince their parents then. But, it's obviously slower. Well, potentially slower. Like, you can only get to a certain amount of schools.

Whereas if something takes off on Amazon, it can go bigger a lot quicker than if you're going round to schools. You know, at the same time, if you look at it from a financial side, I'm also making probably eight times as much per sale direct as I am through Amazon as well. So you don't need to get around to as many.

So there's, there's sort of pros and cons and trade offs all around.

Allan: An interesting analog to that is like, we work with a lot of people in B2B. a lot of times they will be selling a product to somebody who's not the actual user of the product. So sometimes maybe you're selling an enterprise software suite or whatever, and the CFO signs the check and, you know, signs off the deal and all of that.

[00:37:00] But the end users, the people who are going to be actually using the software Totally different. So in those scenarios you essentially have to make two sales. One to the person who's actually making the purchase and then one who's actually going to be using the stuff and hopefully demanding that in their organization.

So I think similarly, you want your kids nagging their parents to, Hey, can you, can you buy me this book? Right. in a similar way, there's kind of. Two segments, a lot of times when you're doing B2B sales or B2B marketing is like, you want the demand to come from the users them going to their boss, them going to their leadership and saying, Hey, we need this software.

We need this product or we need whatever. And then they're making that ROI decision. So I mean, obviously in terms of a children's book that that's not small, but in, enterprise software, it can be. multi million dollar deals that happen this way. But it's interesting. It's, a challenge that many industries have where [00:38:00] the person who's making the purchase is not necessarily the person who's consuming the good or the product or service.

Adam: and isn't it interesting how there is, like we think there's such separate things often, but there's parallels In all these different industries and, areas. And again you'll know your audience a bit better than me if there's anything there you think.

Allan: I just want to ask you one more hypothetical. You've been very kind with your knowledge, your advice, your time. If you were to write a business book, like let's say you were going to write a marketing book, or let's say you were going to write a business advice book. How would you weave storytelling throughout that?

Because uh, again, like I ask slightly selfishly, because that's something that I care about a lot, but. I know a lot of people, whether they're writing a book, whether they're writing a sales page, whether they're writing stuff that is just usually kind of dry content. Cause one of the things that I always try and make sure in my books and in my writing is it's not like a textbook, right?

Like the easiest thing in the world would be just to write a textbook, something that, [00:39:00] you know, here's how you do it. Step one, step two, whatever this is, this is the stuff. But I really try and weave a lot of storytelling, some of my own experiences, some other people's experiences and things like that. What would your approach be?

If let's say, I mean, you've done 180 children's books. Let's say you were going to do a nonfiction book on whatever topic. How would you think about that? Oh,

Adam: Yeah. And I've read both your books and you definitely do put in a lot of stories, which is great. And I've found the ones that the nonfiction, and I read a lot of nonfiction. I probably read more nonfiction than fiction actually. And a lot of the ones that really stick are the ones where there are stories, whether it is about the person writing it or clients they've had.

So one I read recently was The Alter Ego Effect. And that uses so many great stories in it, and it's like, oh yeah! And I think the biggest thing about stories like that is, you sort of go, oh yeah! I get that, or I've been through that, where again if you are reading a bit of a textbook, I mean, I did engineering, and I would read the first three lines of a textbook and my brain would be, it would be [00:40:00] absolutely gone.

So I'd be hopeless, so I need those stories just to keep my interest going. So for me, I did actually just write a, I wrote a non fiction book last year which was on writing picture books or writing kids books and that was, which was called Anyone Can Write Picture Books, which is what a lot of people say.

Anyone can write a kid's book, anyone can write. A guy actually said it to me one time, he was ringing up and we were chatting and it was for a charity, he was getting money for a charity and he's like, you know, what do you do? And I said, oh, I write kids books. He's like, yeah, I tried to write a kid's book once, but I can't, oh no, sorry, I tried to write a book once, but I can't write, so it became a kid's book.

And this is a guy trying to get money off me. So, people have that assumption, so it's about that. So it's sort of, again, telling those experiences that I've had, which again, hopefully, a lot of writers, or sort of people who want to become writers really go, Oh, yeah, I have heard people say that. And so then they go, oh, well, how do I get past that?

And so, I think just with the relating, and then, I actually wrote a book. last year, which I don't know what I'm going to do [00:41:00] with it, but called Humankind, with Kind in capitals. And it's just, it's basically just about being kind and now kindness can change the world. And that came from a story my mum, well, story, when I was chatting to my mum and we were chatting about something, I can't remember what it was, we were chatting about something going on in the world, and she's like, Adam, I think the world would be a better place if people were just kind to each other.

Allan: great advice,

Adam: Huh, it's pretty simple, right? So, so that one is littered with stories. So I think a lot of it is about that connection. But again, also I think it's, when I read a book, especially a non fiction one. You want to know it's a person writing it. So if I'm just reading information, then it, that could be AI, for example.

It could be anything at all. And so when someone's writing it and you go, Oh, this is something that happened to me in my experience. And this is why I'm writing this book, or this is why I'm doing this section. It just gives it that, next level of depth and next level of understanding that It just makes it more interesting to start [00:42:00] with, and I always have a thing like with kids, I want to entertain and inspire as many kids as I can. And, sometimes it can be just one, but if it's just inspiring or informational, then, but not entertaining, then you're going to switch off. But if it's entertaining, you're going to get inspiration and information from that anyway, even if it's not technically direct information.

So, I think having that entertaining in mind. way of reading it. And again, it's I know every class I've ever done in my life at school or otherwise the more I've enjoyed it, the more I've been engaged, the more I've been interested in the person telling it, I've retained so much more. And so I think getting that, and it doesn't have to be a funny story to be entertaining.

Entertaining often gets misunderstood. I think entertaining is just Captivating, that's probably a better word. Like, something where you're going to captivate people and go, Oh, I want to know more about this person, about this topic. Stories they're just the best way to do it.

And as, you do so, more like it's an introduction into, [00:43:00] Oh, and here are five ways that we can, you know, look at that in marketing because of that experience.

Allan: yeah. So, I mean, I have this conversation with people all the time where they're saying, look, now I sell to CEOs. I do serious stuff. I do insurance. I do life insurance or whatever, that sort of stuff. And entertainment is not appropriate. and it's not about being entertainment in terms of being clownish or whatever.

It's about being captivating, capturing attention. It's kind of like the price of entry, like the price of entry into someone's mind is really capturing attention and, you know, being their front, front and center front mind, because if you're boring. People are going to just instantly switch off.

I've noticed that the best storytellers are great curators that say they will, take copious notes. And, you know, I do that myself every day. I like, I can't listen to a podcast or an audio book or read something without stopping it. And I'm like, ah, that the way he said that, that is so awesome. Or that story, that's so good.

And that, you know, and that just serves as [00:44:00] inspiration so that when I'm going to write, I can go through my story bank. I can go through my different snippets list and things like that. And I'm like, ah, that's, that's a great theme for a story or that's a great way of phrasing it or whatever. So I've noticed that curation is such an important part of writing and storytelling, whether you're doing it in a business context, in a creative context, whatever else.

So, and I've noticed that among other authors, I mean, we've. We've hung out with a lot of authors and almost all of them have a very similar process where they're constantly collecting ideas. They like creativity is happening all day, every day, rather than it being, okay, I've got to sit down and be creative right now.

Adam: Yeah, exactly, or I'm just going to wait till the inspiration

Allan: Yes.

Adam: yeah, it's kind of getting out and doing it. And I'm the same as you. It's like, I actually struggle with audio books. I can do podcasts, but audio books, I listen to and, I love, the pages are turned over.

There's underlining, there's notes in them. And then audio book, I just almost [00:45:00] get frustrated driving along because I'm like, I want to write something I want to do. And so I have to not listen to them because. I just get frustrated, especially in non fiction, where I want to, I actually listened to Green Lights, the Matthew McConaughey one, on audiobook, and it was great, but I had to then buy the book so I could actually write stuff down in the book and underline and so, yeah, and again it's all just that, getting the muscle working of finding inspiration and looking at ideas and discussing things and even if it's a discussion with a book in a way, it's.

physical exercise of doing it means that you're more open and more aware to new ideas and new inspiration coming in. And you'll see it and you'll follow a path that you may otherwise have totally missed.

Allan: Totally agree. Adam, it's been such a pleasure to have you on. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for your friendship. I love hanging out with you and catching up with you from time to time. Your books are incredible. You're incredibly prolific. Um, Where can people find you? And everyone should be buying your books for their kids, for their nephews, for their nieces, all of that sort of thing.

[00:46:00] Where can people find your stuff?

Adam: Well, yeah, first off, thank you so much for having me on. It's been great. And it's always so cool coming on a podcast that isn't just about writing kids books. Because you do see the parallels and So yeah, in terms of finding me if you Google Adam Wallace then I'll come up and it's, the website is adam wallace books.

com and I have a little newsletter there. You can sign up for that through the contact page and otherwise on all the social stuff, Instagram, Adam Wallace stuff, Facebook is Adam Wallace Books and that's probably the main spots. Otherwise you can find me in Croydon in Victoria.

Allan: Awesome. Thank you so much, Adam.

Adam: Allann.

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