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In this article, we meet Ilene Lieber, author of Zoey's Adventures to the Ice Cream Shop. Ilene and Zoey will be at Abbott's Frozen Custard on National Read a Book Day on September 6, from 6:00pm-8:00pm. She will be reading her book and copies will be available for purchase, which you can get signed! Read alouds will be at 6:30, 7:00 and 7:30 with meet and greets in between. Plus, see below for a chance to win a copy of the book! Thank you to Jennifer, owner of Abbot's, for hosting!
First, thank you for your time and for sending me a preview copy of your book. It is super cute and kids who like dogs or ice cream, or both, will enjoy it, too! Will you tell us about your book and where your idea came from?
Absolutely! I really appreciate Macaroni Kid sharing the story about our story! The idea for the Zoey’s Adventures children’s book series came several years ago when I reached the five-year anniversary of my PR company, Passion PR (now in year 11). I wanted to do something new, and I thought to myself, what do I love in life? The answer came simple: My Golden “doggy daughter” Zoey, kids and writing, and so a lightbulb went off that I should write a children’s book! I am one of those super devoted dog moms who takes their fur child with them everywhere, and so the idea was to do a children’s book series based on our real life adventures. The first book, Zoey’s Adventures to the Ice Cream Shop, is a true story about Zoey and I visiting a local ice cream shop – The Soda Fountain – on National Ice Cream Day! It has a nice lesson in it, which I like to say is for kids and for grown-ups, about patience and good things come to those who wait. A portion of proceeds support different animal charities, currently Pet Alliance!
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Why is this story important to you?
Writing and publishing and sharing this book has been a huge accomplishment for me that I’m extremely proud of, a true dream come true! It’s very special of course because my Zoey is the star. I love seeing the happy, smiling faces on children and parents as they listen to the story, read along and hearing all their fun feedback too! The story’s lesson of patience even speaks to me personally. (Fun fact: I didn’t write the book with this lesson in mind, but once the story was complete, it was clearly there, so perhaps it was a cool message from the universe in having patience in good things coming, a theme in my life for sure.)
Can you tell us more about Zoey?
Where do I begin! Zoey is truly the love, inspiration and greatest joy of my life. She is 11 years young I like to say, and I’ve had her since she was a baby (adopting her from a shelter in South Florida). She is extremely sweet and loving and has the cutest and quirkiest personality, she has me smiling and laughing all day. She’s truly my spirit pup, and we have a very special connection. I’m so lucky to do life with her. (I know a lot of other pet parents who have this very special, close bond with their fur baby know exactly what I mean!)
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What have been some memorable experiences with your book read alouds and meet and greets?
This is definitely my favorite part of going with Zoey and sharing our book live with the community! It’s so fun seeing kids get excited to meet “real Zoey” and also seeing Zoey so happy at events too. Once she puts on her special pink book collar and leash, she gets so excited for “showtime”! She loves giving out free kisses and interacting with kids and families, she’s great with them! We are truly very grateful to everyone who has given us the incredible opportunity to share our story, and we look forward to sharing it with many more audiences to come (and hopefully doing more books in the future!).
What has been your experience with writing and when did you want to become a children's author?
I’ve always enjoyed writing in different forms. Interestingly enough, I loved writing poems as a child, but I didn’t think about becoming a children’s book author until much later. I’ve written a lot in my career as a publicist, mainly press releases, and the Zoey book is my first experience in children’s literature. The story itself came actually quite quickly and was a lot of fun to write, and I really love the super sweet, adorable result! I incorporated things in the story like repetition and the lesson, which I learned are great components of a children’s book.
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What advice do you have for young authors?
I give the same advice to young authors that I do with anyone who has a business idea – Do it! A colleague of mine, also a children’s book author, gave me a nudge to do it and specifically self-publish. Of course working with a publisher would be amazing, which I’m certainly open to if fortunate enough for that to happen. There are various ways to publish a book, and all the resources are out there to help you. With self publishing, it’s just a matter of making the decision, writing the story and making what I feel is a worthwhile investment in finding the right illustrator and printer to get the book made! Then of course once you have the copies, the real work comes, the most fun and pivotal part, in promoting it and getting it out there!
How did you self-publish your book?
I describe the process as a “labor of love”. As I mentioned, the story itself came pretty quickly, and the rest of the process took about two full years until the finished product. After writing the story, the most important part was finding an illustrator who could really capture my vision of brightly colored illustrations for the book. I worked with two wonderful illustrators Scott LaFortune and Zohreh Riyahi, who really brought my vision to life! Once the illustrations were finalized, then it came time to find a printer, go thru several rounds of approval (which also took extra time during the pandemic), and then finally I had my beautiful finished product that I’m extremely happy with how it turned out!
What are some ways you share your book with others? If people want to contact you, what do you offer and how should they contact you?
My favorite part of this whole venture is sharing the book live with children at various storytime and other events all across town! We’ve been very fortunate since the book came out to have many terrific opportunities to share the book at museums, schools, markets, festivals, mom/kids groups, non-profits and other awesome events, and we look forward to doing many more! I’d love to get more involved with libraries as well. We are available for both live and virtual readings. We just had a fantastic summer doing storytimes at Orlando Science Center as part of their special Dogs! exhibit, we will be at “Dog Day” at Leu Gardens October 14, and next up, we cannot wait to be at Abbott’s Frozen Custard in Winter Garden on the three-year anniversary of the book release on National Read a Book Day September 6! The book is available for purchase at www.zoeysadventuresbooks.com and on Amazon, and folks can follow along our adventures and contact us on our social media ( www.facebook.com/zoeysadventuresbooks and IG: zoeysadventuresbooks). We are also thrilled to be sold in the beautiful store, Eyre Home, in the Ivanhoe District (their kids section is truly magical!).
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Enter to Win a Copy of the Book!! |
