The Love Tree
cover of Katie Biron’s The Love Tree showing Mama Fox and Little Mouse
Katie Biron was inspired to write The Love Tree from seeing her own children struggle with the “family tree” assignment in elementary school. Katie is a mom to four kids: one adopted at birth, two born biologically to Katie and her husband, and one adopted through foster care. Katie’s commitment to keep her children connected to their biological family has created a big, complicated, beautiful family that just doesn’t fit in those little boxes on the family tree worksheets her kids brought home from school. With space for just one mom and dad and only two sets of grandparents, Katie’s kids felt confused and excluded.
Katie got to thinking: who says this is what family is supposed to look like anyway? Why all these straight lines and tiny boxes? Is biological parentage really what makes a family?
This soon led to Katie writing her first children’s book, The Love Tree, a celebration of love that goes beyond old-fashioned definitions and affirms all kinds of family structures.
It’s a beautiful book with the power to help many children, so I was beyond thrilled when Katie asked me to support her with The Love Tree’s publication and marketing.
I just love working with self-published authors to promote their books. Self-publishing is great for many authors. One downside, however, is the lack of support for promotion and marketing that traditional publishers provide. Getting the book published is just one step in the journey - the marketing required to actually get the book in readers’ hands is essential.
As a first-time author, new to the self-publishing world, Katie was understandably nervous about taking the leap. Katie is a working mom, so taking on the task of self-publishing and marketing a book was in no way the only thing on her plate!
Together, we devised a marketing plan uniquely suited to Katie’s life; one that allowed her to effectively promote her book while maintaining balance with her other (many) responsibilities.
I supremely enjoy working with Katie because it is such a fun mix of consulting and producing. Often, I advise Katie on what I think is best and then she does that thing. Other times, we agree on what should be done next and then I get to do the thing! I’ve been surprised to learn that I enjoy tasks like building a base of Instagram posts to advertise the book (see below) almost as much as creating a full marketing plan!
Most of all, it was so exciting to see it all come to fruition! When my copies arrived from Amazon, it was just incredible to hold them in my hands!
And it is so gratifying to see the Amazon reviews come rolling in! The Love Tree is already having a positive impact on children and families.
“The Love Tree is an important read as families are wonderfully diverse but school assignments can be rigid.”
“As an adoptive and foster mom, this has helped open up discussion with kids about all the people who love them, and that they are not alone in having a different family dynamic.”
“Of course we can be loved by ALL of the people in our family; the definition of family is wide and inclusive.”
The Love Tree is available for purchase here
And if you know anyone looking for some support as they dip their toe in the self-publishing world, send them my way!
