We recently connected with Elena Hall and have shared our conversation below.

Elena, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the story of how you went from this being just an idea to making it into something real.

As an adoptee, it is important to me to have adoption related content that comes from the adoptee perspective. After publishing Through Adopted Eyes and Through Adopted Hearts (books from adoptees, birth parent, and adoptive parent perspective) I wanted to dive into the Children’s book arena. I was waiting for a friend, and while I was waiting I started thinking about what I needed as a younger adoptee. What would I have benefited from? What an other adoptees from different types of backgrounds benefit from? I started creating adoptee related statements and rhymes in my head and created some notes on my phone. By the time my friend arrived, I had a first draft of the book. After that, I reached out to my sister Lara, fellow adoptee, and in the span of a couple hours we had our first draft of Adoption Is Both – a kids book for adoptees to help start conversations around the complexities of adoption. It follows 2 fluff characters around that help express that adoption is not just one thing or one emotion. I am NOT an artist so I was thankful Lara was up for the challenge. This was a first for her too and within hours we had a good idea of what we wanted. Lara and I played around with different kids of characters for the book and it was a lot of fun to do this with my sister. I had published my other books, but a picture book was a whole new adventure! I spent hours online researching what to do, how to format, and how to produce a good product. After we built it, it was submitted and published and TADA a whole book for young kids! The other books took years, and this one collectively took somewhere between 10 and 15 hours to do. Since releasing Adoption Is Both, I have had the pleasure of connecting with fellow story tellers, adoptees, and adoptive families that are all excited to share stories and help children process big emotions that come with adoption.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My adoptive parents always told my sister and I that we were adopted. We were both adopted internationally before we were 18 months old. I have a great family. I have a lot of adoption related questions, thoughts, and have always been vocal about my adoption experience. I realized that I wanted people to know what being adopted is like from adoptees. In 2018 I published Through Adopted Eyes (adoptee stories) and in 2020 I published Through Adopted Hearts (adoptive and birth parent stories) that are collections of stories from others directly impacted by adoption. Every adoptee is different and sharing stories is important! This passion to help others also influenced my schooling. I finished my Masters in Social Work and enjoy the work that comes with my day to day job. But at the same time, coming home and working on a writing project has always been fun for me. Since 2018, I have spoken at and attended conferences, met other adoptees, and I am proud of how all 3 books have turned out. It took a lot of help from my editor, support from family and friends, and a lot of work. At the end of the day, this business (Through Adopted Eyes) was built from the passion to help people understand that all adoptees are different and adoptees have a valuable voice in the adoption realm.

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

I thought writing and publishing books would take a ton of money. I thought doing an ebook and audiobooks would also take thousands. I was wrong! I did hours of research and learned that there are pros and cons to different types of publishing and routes to getting the finished product. I was told one audiobook would be around $3500, but I did it for around $50. I got all my friends together (virtually) during 2020. I asked friends to help me record the audio for Through Adopted Eyes and Through Adopted Hearts. All I had to do was buy the editing software. Over 300 hours of editing work, but it was worth it! Same thing with the ebook. I did a lot of research, had a lot of family and friend cheering me on, and realized I don’t have to pay extra if I was willing to put in the effort. While I may have had some trial and error within the editing, writing, and publishing, funding the business was an area of initial stress that ended up being a good learning experience.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Social media, trainings, and conferences have been a blast. Connecting with others virtually or in person at events has been so fun! I enjoy working a booth at an adoption related conference and getting to meet conference attendees. I also enjoy speaking at events and telling others about my books. Recently I have also started doing adoption/adoptee related trainings for agencies and non profit organizations. Being an author and writer is a really hard clientele to keep because books are mostly a one time purchase. So, I have had to have many different points of outreach to connect with clientele. I have tried to keep up with social media content and enjoy doing that. I also enjoy educating professionals and parents about my adoptee experience. At the end of the day, growing clientele is meaningless if you don’t stay true to your brand or your mission. So, if I have a social media post that gets 5 ‘likes’ then I will keep it posted. Social media is a strategic tool, not a measure of worth.

Contact Info:

• Website: throughadoptedeyesbook.wixsite.com/book
• Instagram: @ThroughAdoptedEyes
• Facebook: @ThroughAdoptedEyes
• Twitter: @adoptedeyes
• Other: Check out all of Elena’s books on Amazon