We were lucky to catch up with Janine Masi Landreth and Leigh Ann Thompson recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Janine and Leigh Ann thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?
Our journey began by meeting at Barnes and Noble on a weekly basis. We did a bunch of research on what appeals to children and how to properly write a successful book. We would read and dissect popular children’s books. We took an online class about the craft of writing for that genre. All that aside, we really just bounced a ton of ideas off of each other, laughed ourselves silly, and jotted down all sorts of crazy on paper. After a couple months, several concepts were tossed around until finally it all became a reality. It came down to a fun, loveable pig named BaKon, who wears an I Love Bacon shirt mimicking the infamous I love NY tee. Side note, and we are both from NY state.
Janine moved to Hong Kong for three years for her husband’s job. So, that threw a bit of a wrench in our timeline. When she returned and got settled back in, we went full force and created BaKon Brands Publishing LLC.
The next phase was to learn how to self publish our book. We slowly but surely learned the process and we formally launched our first book “Everybody Loves BaKon” in August of 2021. Soon after we released a Christmas activity book, and in March of 2022 we launched our second book, “What’s Shakin’ BaKon”. To expand our business we designed a line of bullet, line and gratitude journals. Our beautifully crafted journals all include original artwork/photography on the front, back and inside covers.
Janine and Leigh Ann, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
We both come from artistic backgrounds, which led us to start painting and drawing at very early ages. Luckily, this enabled us to be fortunate enough to study art at the collegiate level.
We had all of this creative energy and we wanted to put it to good use. So we thought, why not write and illustrate children’s picture books? Now to the BIGGER question… is this going to be a business or a hobby??
We realized that we had to make this work as a business instead of a hobby. Ultimately, this pushed us to create our own business BaKon Brands LLC., and run with it.
In managing a business it is vital to keep costs down. We are probably most proud of the fact that we had the education and talent behind us that enabled us to self publish and illustrate our books without any outside help. This helped keep the cost down. We sell our products on Amazon which significantly reduces inventory, packaging and shipping costs as well.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
We quickly became friends after we met in 2004 while working in the corporate world together in Atlanta, Georgia. Our unique friendship was formed over having several things in common such as painting, drawing and having similar jobs in the fashion industry. However, the one thing we bonded over the most was the heartbreaking loss of our mothers at a young age.
After years of excelling in our careers, it was time for a change. So, we left our corporate jobs behind in the children’s clothing industry to pursue our new dream. We decided to turn our friendship into a brilliant collaboration to illustrate and write children’s picture books. We wanted to use our artistic skills and ambitions to create something that would make our mothers proud and put fulfilling smiles on children’s faces. This led to the creation of BaKon the pig!
How did you build your audience on social media?
We have explored a number of ways to promote our business including word of mouth, posting on personal Facebook pages and creating our own Facebook page for the business. Above all, Instagram seems to be the most successful marketing tool we have found thus far. It really is all about communicating and networking with other independent (indie) authors to create a supportive community. The more you develop relationships with people in your same industry the more you help each other get books out there to share with your targeted audiences. We have also done giveaways and collaborations with other authors to promote our books. We have participated in several artist markets including The Bacon Festival, The Perfect Pigg vendor fair and The Halcyon Artist Market. We found this helpful in getting our books out to the general public. Our books and journals are also featured in some local stores as well. This year we are planning on expanding into public libraries and more schools! We are so excited to see what the future brings for our favorite little pig BaKon!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: everybodylovesbakon
- Facebook: BaKon Brands
- Other: https://linktr.ee/BaKonBrands
Image Credits
Janine Masi Landreth Leigh Ann Thompson