We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alison Woods. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alison below.

Alison, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What were some of the most unexpected problems you’ve faced in your business and how did you resolve those issues?

Preparing a book for print requires using Adobe InDesign. I got the software, took one course and was ready to go. On my screen everything looked perfect.

I sent a few pages to the printer and the feedback was not good. Elements were missing. Fonts weren’t attached and more.

I found a formatter on Upwork.com and to my shock none of the illustrators were at a high enough resolution to print. I contacted illustrator, she reshot the illustrations and we were good to go.

I was terrified that my investment in the illustrator was a waste of money.

I learned that a tool like InDesign is not for the casual user. I have used the same formatter on all of my books.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a retired Information Technology executive! But now, I am a Children’s book author and storyteller. Quite a change – here’s how it happened!

My oldest granddaughter, Kayla, spent every summer with me from the time she was 1 until she was 13. When she was about three years old – I wanted to get new books to read to her. I really wanted to get a book series that featured an African American girl as the lead character. Although there were several individual books like this – I didn’t find a series. The sales person at the book store recommended Doc McStuffins. I loved this cartoon – but I was looking for something more realistic.

I came home and decided I would try to write a series. My Name Is Kayla was my first book in the KaylaKay series. The second book is On Sundays We Go To Church. The third book, that will be out next fall is Me and Santa.

I’ve branched out to other characters, too! We Are Happy is based on my experiences with my twin grandsons: Hunter and Liam. Hunter, the oldest, narrates the story as the two brothers figure out that they are twins.

My fourth book – My Name Is Kash – is the boy version of My Name Is Kayla! The original title was My Name Is Kareem. Kayla’s mom had a baby boy before the illustrations were done. His name is Kash!

I have more books written but am focusing my efforts now on getting known and increasing sales of my current titles.

Now, for the storytelling! I started making up stories when my two youngest children couldn’t decide on what book they wanted me to read one night. I don’t remember the story – but I do remember that they loved it and even preferred my made up stories to the books that I would read. They grew up and I thought that was the end of my storytelling career. But then along came grandchildren! With the youngest grands, I decided to get them involved with the story. I prompt them by saying: Give me two words and I’ll give you a story! I call it Spontaneous Fiction ™. You can just imagine how funny/crazy some of the stories can be.

Whenever I am asked to do an event with my books – I’ll always do at least one story. At a recent event at a small charter school in Memphis, I think I did at least 10!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

As a self-published author I didn’t know just how much I didn’t know. I did some things right. I had the book edited, I found and hired the illustrator,I chose the size and I knew I would need to use a product from Adobe – InDesign – to lay it out.

I bought the software and took one course. I thought, ok, I can do this. InDesign is like PowerPoint on steroids and I’m a PowerPoint whiz. The printer rep asked me to send a couple of pages so his technical people could give me feedback. The feedback was not so good – as a matter of fact – they used terminology that I wasn’t familiar with. At that point, I decided I’d better get sone help. I found a formatter on upwork.com and sent everything off to her.

She reached out to me in the chat and said “Alison, none of your illustrations will work.’ I go into panic mode but somehow managed to respond with ‘What exactly do you mean by ALL?” It turned out that the illustrations were not at a high enough resolution and NO printer would accept my files. I went into full panic mode at that point. She suggested that I go back to the illustrator and ask her to shoot the illustrations at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. The illustrator was able to do that.

Although the launch was delayed, the book got done!

I think the resilience comes in here twice. First, recognizing that I needed help AND getting it (something that’s not easy for me to do). Second, after the initial panic, calming down and solving the problem.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

When I retired, I decided to use some of my retirement money to fund my business. I figured if things didn’t work out; I’d just scale back on my lifestyle.

Not the best way to fund a business – but it was/is a risk that I believe was worth taking.

Contact Info:

• Website: alisonwoodswrites.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/alisonwoodswrites
• Facebook: facebook.com/alisonwoodswrites
• Youtube: youtube.com/channel/UCHBJ2Eo3B6ZPaODI4DaDo5w

Image Credits
Willie & Kim Howard