Mindy: Welcome to Writer Writer Pants on Fire, where authors talk about things that never happened to people who don't exist. We also cover craft, the agent hunt, query trenches, publishing, industry, marketing and more. I'm your host, Mindy McGinnis. You can check out my books and social media at mindymcginnis dot com and make sure to visit the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques and more as well as full transcriptions of each podcast episode. at WriterWriterPants on Fire.com. And don’t forget to check out the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire Facebook page. Give me feedback, suggest topics you’d like to hear discussed, and let me know if there is someone you’d love to see a a guest.

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Mindy: We're here today with Maria Dismondy, founder of Cardinal Rule Press. Cardinal Rule Press is dedicated to producing picture books that empower Children with timeless messages of hope, courage and the golden rule. They work very hard to release Children's literature that represents today's diversity while remaining dedicated to messages that make a difference. Those are awesome statements, but if you could put a little more of a human touch on that and just talk about Cardinal Rule press.

Maria: Absolutely. So I actually started out as a writer myself, and the reason I started writing is because I was a classroom teacher for 11 years. I liked to use Children's literature as a mentor text to spark a conversation, so I noticed that a lot of my students were feeling bad about who they were. It was a very diverse community, and kids were embarrassed by the foods they were eating at lunchtime, like their traditional Indian dishes. I had families who invited me over for these amazing meals at their homes, and I was young and unmarried at the time. I was going to these beautiful dinners and just celebrating their culture in their homes. But at school it looks different. They were embarrassed. 

So I was like, Let me find a book that I can read to the kids about a child who has positive self esteem and the courage to be themselves. Well, this was back in 2006. I could not find a book. I found books about dancing dinosaurs and singing fish, and I just found that there was a big lack of realistic fiction depicting Children characters. So that's when I wrote Spaghetti In A Hot Dog Bun. So I started out on my own writing journey, and I really wanted kids to be able to see themselves within the pages. So Spaghetti In A Hot Dog Bun has Children who are diverse not only in their skin color but in their abilities. and in their personalities. And so I continued this journey as a writer myself for many years, and then I started transitioning into Okay, I don't want to do this. I want to help other people to get similar messages into the world. And so, in about 2015, that's when I started Cardinal Rule Press. 

Mindy: It puts more of a human touch on it, and I think that that is really important because diversity is a buzzword right now in the world, also in our industry. And so having it broken down into the actual where did this come from? And why is this important? Instead of just using the word and having everyone nod their head and assume that everybody is starting from the same place in the same understanding of diversity. Because you say Spaghetti In A Hot Dog Bun, you know, I never would have thought, Oh, that would be what we mean when we talk about diversity, right? So that's super relatable as someone that, as a kid, really enjoyed - this is disgusting to me, as an adult - I really enjoyed tearing up pieces of ham, tearing up pieces of American cheese and pouring ranch over that and eating it. 

Maria: Oh, my goodness.

Mindy: It was like a salad with no vegetables.

Maria: Oh, my goodness. It was the ranch phase. I feel like most Children go through a ranch phase, right?

Mindy: Oh,my gosh, that's what I did. I would come home from school and I would tear up chipped ham, American cheese and pour ranch over that. And my God, I It was just a protein carb sugar bowl. That's what that was. Immediately, as soon as I said that you were like, Oh, yeah, ranch phase, right? So more about when you're talking about Children's books and the messages that we put out there for our Children, and you're saying that you, for example, have located a niche in terms of diversity of food and just like what people are eating at lunch. 

It's an interesting space, because that is a weird but very specific source of insecurity for kids. And you do see it. I work in a public school as a substitute. I used to be a librarian. You do see kids that are embarrassed about what they bring for their lunch or they are envious sometimes of what other people have for their lunch and and, of course, unfortunately, kids with no lunch at all. So that's the kind of thing that, yeah, I mean, a Children's book about this would be so helpful. Can you talk about like some of the other titles or some of the other areas that Cardinal Rule Press has explored?

Maria: We just had a title come out in October. It's called Rajas Pet Camel, and it's all set in India. And it's a story about a little boy who wants a camel as a pet. But really, camels are used for work. So it's a beautiful story of hope and determination because he just doesn't let this go with his dad. And the author is Indian American, and she did not grow up in India. Her parents did, but she spent a lot of summers in India and continues to have a lot of those traditions with her family. So we put a lot of the culture from India into the story. We actually were able to find an illustrator who lives in India currently, who is Indian himself, and so the illustrations are authentic and beautiful. 

So that was a book that we were super duper proud of. We have a title coming out this year, and we had a hard time finding an illustrator that was from the Latino community. So what we did is we hired an author illustrator, and we brought in someone called a sensitivity reader. So we put extra money into hiring someone from the Latino community to look at our illustrations to look at our book because the character is a Latina girl and we said, We want to make sure that we're representing the culture appropriately. We want to make sure that somebody who grew up in the community, who has the authenticity to tell us whether or not we've done justice on this title. So that's another example of kind of what we're doing to keep that diversity in our stories because, oh, my goodness, it's hard. I think it's wonderful that there has been this highlight on diversity, but it has made certain illustrators hard to come by. 

Mindy: I want to come back to the idea of illustrators in general in a moment. On the  inclusion aspect. I'm an author, I'm a YA author and always on panels of course, representation and diversity has been a big part of the conversation for a few years now. Yet we're not seeing a ton of actual forward change. That is slowly, slowly becoming the reality. But not without pretty much everyone you know, digging their heels in and putting their shoulder to it and trying to move this behemoth forward. 

One of the things that I want to mention is that I am often on panels, you get questions about, you know, diversity and inclusion, and sometimes often it has followed up with - And why does it matter? It should be a question that holds an obvious answer. But I think one of the things that particularly the average white viewer reader doesn't quite realize is that you know, we have been living in an assumed white or a white based media world for so long. 

I wrote one of my books, Heroine, which is about the opioid epidemic, and I am white. I'm from the Midwest. I practice inclusion. My main character is always going to be white because that's what's appropriate for me to be writing. But that doesn't mean that you then only write a white cast. So still practice inclusion one of the things that I did was I had the best friend be Puerto Rican. I had actually had a really, really awesome interaction with a Puerto Rican book club. Just had, like, this great interaction with these kids, and they were so enthusiastic. And I ended up meeting with them again for the next book that I wrote. 

And then I remembered that one of my classmates, when I was growing up in a Super white Midwest area like super rural everything is very country, and I grew up pretty much surrounded by white faces. One of my classmates was Puerto Rican, but he was white passing, and I did not realize that he was Puerto Rican until I was in high school, possibly even an adult. And I was like, Wait a minute, What? And so I just felt, uh, like, I would write a Puerto Rican character into this mostly white space, and so that was a choice that I made for that book Heroine.

Interestingly enough, I got an email just last week from a librarian in a town that isn't terribly far from me, like maybe 40 minutes away, and she was like I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your inclusion of a Puerto Rican character in a white space and in the Midwest, because she's like, I'm Puerto Rican and I ended up having a conversation with her. And it turns out that she grew up like, 20 minutes from me, and she was like, Yeah, I'm Puerto Rican and we're here. We're in the Midwest. I've never seen an acknowledgement of that. And she was like, Thanks, like that meant a lot to me. She's, you know, she's an adult and she had an emotional reaction to seeing herself represented. 

Maria: That's what I'm passionate about, because I mean, I taught these students and like to open up the pages of these books and for them not to be able to connect with characters on that level. I thought that was really disheartening. I mean, I love that story that you shared because it's not just Children, but it's people of all ages that want to be represented. 

Mindy: Absolutely. So if you want to talk a little bit about how you go about finding your illustrators, your authors, your artists to help create that wider palette.

Maria: This has actually been a challenge in the book industry for me, because finding authors, um, I need them to know about us. I need them to submit their books to us, and their books also have to follow our guidelines. So we still are only producing realistic fiction. So that's something that I've stuck my foot in and said, This is our niche. We're gonna do this over the lash in about a year and a half. We've done a huge visibility campaign and are really trying to get our name out there so that people know what is Cardinal Rule Press all about. 

So we've had these, like, 30 second commercials created and we're putting them on social media. We're putting them out there. So people of different colors of different races of different abilities know, they can come to us with their stories, so that's the first part. The second part is we use different agencies to find our illustrators. And so I worked with agents at those agencies to tell them what we're looking for. And then we also have our budget. And so what we found actually this last time around is people of color are booked out 3 to 4 years in advance on their illustration projects, which I think is fantastic. It's wonderful. This means that something is happening. We're starting to see a change. So that's how we go about finding our illustrators. 

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Mindy: Speaking about illustration in general, a lot of the times when I am talking to authors, aspiring authors and especially aspiring Children's book authors. Now, if they've done any of their work, they should know that the Children's market is actually one of the most difficult markets to break into. And partially that is because I think people don't actually respect what it takes to write a Children's book. Parents sit down and they read to their kid that has, you know, like a very low lexile level, and it's just like rhyming or whatever, and they're like, Oh, I could do that and they don't understand that, it's actually extremely difficult. 

I can tell you, as someone that writes novels and writes short stories, that I could not write a Children's book. It is misleading in its simplicity. Let's put it that way. It does use a very specific skill set to be able to write a Children's book. I hear a lot of aspiring authors, they want to provide their own illustrations or they already have, like a friend they want to have do the illustrations for them, and oftentimes I have to explain - No, that's not how that works. The publishing house will match an illustrator with you. That's the process, not Hey, my mom is good with Photoshop. So if you could talk about that a little bit like, why is that in the first place? How do you go about the process of matching an illustrator with an author? 

Maria: What we do to match? Um, we have a team meeting with our book designer and our acquisitions editor, and we sit down and we say, Okay, here's the manuscript that we've taken on. Let's have this discussion. Let's brainstorm. What is the feel that you have for this book? Are we looking at soft pastel colors? Are you looking at bold colors like, what is the voice of the story? Um, what do we want the artwork to really look like? So that's our first conversation. And then I go to the agent at the illustration company and I'll say, Hey, this is what we're looking for. This is the manuscript. These are kind of our thoughts on what we're looking for, and then she or he will give us about six portfolios to look at. And then I'll go back to our team and we'll look at those. So that's kind of like the matching process.

Mindy: I'm curious about, If an author comes to you saying, you know, Oh, I already have illustrations I did myself or I would like for someone else to do it, um, does that help or hinder them? 

Maria: It actually hinders. And the reason why is because unless you are a professional artist, which means you have some history in graphic design or you have some history in publishing, it can hinder you. Because most publishers have some sort of a consistent style in their illustrations that they're looking for so if you come to us as an author and you don't have that style in your artwork, but your manuscript is really great. Well, you're hindering yourself because one doesn't match the other. 

We find that there's a lot of learning curves with people who say, Oh, my mom is an artist. She would love to illustrate this book. Well, unless you really know, like bleeds and, um using templates from printers and being able to lay out a book when you're designing it and you're illustrating it, if the person doesn't know that there's a lot of learning curves and it can slow a project up. So I think that that's really why. And also we don't want you to be emotionally tied to the illustrations. We want an artist to say, Okay, here is the manuscript. I'm going to take my creative spin on it because an artist truly does take the words and says, How can I show this? How can I really help the child to be able to look at the illustrations and go beyond the text? And I think there's an art to that.

Mindy: There most definitely is. Just as there is an art to actually composing the words and putting together that manuscript, you know, I can tell you, as someone that saved their books from their childhood. When I look at those books again, it is not the words that I remember. I mean, I can pick them up and I can be like, Oh, yes, you know, and especially if there's a cadence or a rhyme, I might even be able to still predict and know what the next page says. But the reaction that you get from me and the thing that actually makes me go Oh, yeah, is the pictures. Seeing those pictures. 

And it's amazing to me how they still drum up the same emotions. So it's like I can look at like a particular picture of a cupcake like a cartoonist drawing of a cupcake. And I'm like, Oh, God, I love cupcakes, right? I mean, I feel that way, just like looking at a picture of a cupcake. But there is a specific type of like food desire that I would just like as a kid. I'm just going to sit and look at this picture of a cupcake, right? Like it makes me happy. There is an innate skill at work there. But like you're saying, there are also so many different skills that come with working in the industry and just being a professional, as opposed to being a hobbyist. 

Maria: Yes, absolutely. I think you got it right there being a professional versus being a hobbyist, and a lot of times we come and my sister's grandma's cousin, that's a hobby.

Mindy: Oftentimes, when I am speaking with people that are interested in becoming a Children's book author, they also don't understand the competitiveness of that world and not necessarily competitive between authors versus authors. But just how hard it is to even like find a slot and to break in. It doesn't mean that just because you can rhyme you're in. So if you could talk about those specific skills that are required for the author of a Children's book.

Maria: You may not like my answer, but I'm going to be completely honest. We are a small press, which means we produce a small number of books per year, usually about four titles per year, and I'm connected in the industry with companies that have 100 titles a year that they're putting out into the market and there's a couple different things. I'm gonna start with number one and this one, I think, is fine. You're not going to be like, Oh my goodness. But Number one is market research, so please do the research before submitting a title. Let's say you have this grandiose idea. You've written a book, you submit it. But little do you know that there are five other books doing really well out in the market, getting a ton of sales, a ton of reviews on a very similar topic and a very similar story. 

So you want to have something that is slightly different from what's out in the market. We don't want the same stuff over and over again. Granted, we'd love more books on kindness, but can you take a different spin on it? Can it not be the same thing over and over again? And so that's called market research. So authors really should be going to bookstores going online, looking at different titles, getting them from the library and making sure your book is different. It's going to stand out, and one suggestion that I have for that is to actually look at negative reviews on those books that are doing well because there's always going to be a negative review. Look for a negative review. What do people say That book is lacking? How can you write something that adds that?

And then number two-  a platform. So actually being a writer who starts to create a platform for yourself and what I mean platform, you can have a blog, and maybe you share short, short stories on your blog. You can have a social media account that is professional, maybe on Instagram, Let's say, because a lot of Children's book authors are on instagram right now because their audience, which would be teachers and parents, are on instagram. It should be a public account. You should be posting about your love for literacy, maybe about the writing process.

For those of you who are like but wait a second. I'm not a published author yet. I understand. But through talking with my friends in the industry again, I have this friend who they produce 100 books a year, and he tells me nowadays they're looking for a really good manuscript. But they're also looking. Does that author have a platform? I was shocked by this because I said, Okay, I'm a small press. Of course, it's harder for us to take a risk on someone who doesn't have a platform. And we have. We've taken risks on people without a platform. But I'm shocked to see that somebody who produces so many books a year and has more of a backbone in sales, saying they're not taking risks on these debut authors who are not visible. I wish that I could say it's only about your writing, but nowadays it's about your writing. But it's also about how are you going to help your publisher? How are you going to help your distributor get the word out there about your books? Are you connected socially?

Mindy: No, it's not easy to hear, especially for people that are out there going - But I don't have anything to actually share with the world yet! It's okay, I can tell you as someone that, uh, started blogging in 2011. I started blogging once I had an agent, but I could have been blogging before that and simply writing about learning about the publishing industry. I learned so much in forums. In particular, I was very, very active, and I was like a moderator in a writing forum that doesn't exist anymore. But I could have been blogging and just about topics of interest and things in the publishing industry, the very first time I ever went to a writer's conference. And essentially the function that my posts in that forum served was more or less a blog because I was one of the leaders in that particular community. 

Now I know that, of course, as soon as I say I was a leader in that particular community, people like, Yeah, so you already had an audience, Sure, but, you know, I got there by walking in and creating an account and saying, Hi, my name is... right? You have to start somewhere and I know, I know that it's like, easy for me to say as I sit here and you know, I have 10 books published, and that's what I do for a living. But I wasn't born with 10,000 Twitter followers. It was work. It is work. You don't always love it. You don't always have something to say, but you have to put yourself out there. You have to be present. And I know that people don't want to hear that, that you just want to make your art and have someone love it. And that sounds great. Me, too. But that's just not the world we're living in.

Maria: Exactly. I think you have a great point. And like you said, uh, you could have been blogging before this happened. And I also found that, you know, I started blogging. I think my goal at the beginning was three days a week, which is a lot, but it was helping with my writing to to write that much.

Mindy: And it's a different form of writing. Speaking directly to your audience, and that helped me be better at any type of marketing language, any type of promotional language, like I am fluent in that now. And it's not because I went to school and have a degree. It's because I moved through these circles enough.

Maria: I love that point. 

Mindy: I know that nobody wants to hear about all the work that you have to do before you even begin your work, but we have the Internet now, guys. I was querying when you had to go to Barnes and Noble and buy the marketplace Guide to literary agents and print a query and have a self addressed, stamped envelope and mail your query. Get your envelopes back with your own handwriting on them, addressed to you with a little card inside that says No.

Maria: I'm laughing because I did the same thing for Spaghetti In A Hot Dog Bun, but I sent it out to 90 publishers. I had that book. I had little dog-eared pages. I highlighted. I had a checklist that when a letter came in the mail and it said No, I would, you know, market on my checklist, it was old school.

Mindy: Old school. And it cost you money. You had to buy ink and you had to buy paper and you had to buy postage. And it's like, Dude, all you do now is send an email. You can learn how to do these things quickly. The Internet is here for you. You're not being asked to do anything that is impossible. I have a degree in English literature, but I've never taken a writing class in my life. I don't know anyone in publishing. I had no connections. I'm a farmer's daughter from Ohio and I write novels for a living because - the Internet. It sounds like so much work. But I believe me, it used to be harder.

Last thing, if there are any of my listeners that want to submit to Cardinal Rule Press, can you talk about your submission guidelines? 

Maria: First of all, we take unsolicited manuscripts, so I think that's awesome. You don't have to be represented by an agent to submit to us. Everything is digital, so we don't accept anything in the mail, which people still send us submissions through the mail, which clearly they're not following the guidelines and they're wasting their money. 

So we have an open submissions period, which begins November 1st, so you have plenty of time to work on your submission. It closes February 1st, so we usually open up that window for a certain amount of time, and then we read all the manuscripts and then we make our selections. However, next year we're going to break that up into a couple different submissions period, so just kind of stay tuned for that. 

But the first one coming up would be November 1st 2021. Realistic fiction picture books under 1000 words depicting positive character traits. So think of stories that are teaching kids the values of courage and kindness and generosity and determination and perseverance. We are active on Twitter and Facebook as well as Instagram. Um, so we're in all three places. We have a zero inbox policy. So between the inboxes that you would be submitting to myself, Maria at Cardinal Rule press or marketing or submissions, we read your emails. We do. So we'd love to hear from you if you have any questions.

Mindy: Writer Writer Pants on Fire is produced by Mindy McGinnis. Music by Jack Korbel. Don't forget to check out the blog for additional interviews, writing advice and publication tips at Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com. If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com and click “support the blog and podcast” in the sidebar.