Hello, everybody. It's Sam from the Financial Samurai Podcast where we try to help you achieve financial freedom sooner rather than later. Today I have a special guest with me, author and illustrator Colleen Kong Savage of Piano Wants to Play. Welcome to the show, Colleen. Hey, Sam. Good to meet you and thanks for having me on.

Well, no problem. I've actually been working with you for a while since you illustrated the chapter art for Buy This, Not That for my book as well as came up with many awesome graphics for Financial Samurai over the years. Way back when. That's right. That's right. So in this episode, I'd love to know everything there is to know about being an illustrator and an author of children's books in New York City because as a fellow author, I know it's pretty hard grind.

I'm not sure anybody really gets rich being an author. So I'd love to hear your story because you're almost like the classic starving artist it seems like in New York City. It's just a hustle. Everything is hustle if you're a creative, especially in New York City where it's so expensive just to exist.

I'm a teaching artist in addition to being an illustrator and I do some graphic design work as well here and there for some small businesses and with those small business owners, they're hustling also. It's hustle city. So New York City, it's quintessentially one of the most expensive places to live in America.

There was a recent Zillow study and we were just talking about it saying it's number six and the top most expensive place to live in America in terms of how much median household income you need to earn. It's something like $211,000+ to be able to buy that typical home.

So how do artists get by and why don't more artists or writers live in cheaper areas of the country? Why is there just like this mecca of attraction in New York City? Because there's so many creatives here. In the children's book publishing industry, it's actually kind of a small community.

All the publishing houses are here and authors, illustrators. Once a month, I know in Brooklyn, they have a monthly meetup. They call it kid-lit group therapy and you have a whole bunch of illustrators and authors meeting up at a bar and just connecting, creating a community. Last night, I got to hang out with some other fellow creatives in Queens, our own monthly meetup.

I wouldn't get that if I was living in Ohio, say. Right, right. I mean, it must be so fun to have all these meetups and just feel so invigorating to collaborate and meet with small and big illustrators and writers. Yeah, it's inspiring. The kid-lit community is actually so warm.

You imagine, you fantasize that kid-lit people like children's book authors and illustrators would be very nice people because they work with kids. And it's true. It's so competitive and yet there's an understanding that there's enough room for our diverse voices and styles. Everybody knows that it's a struggle, so people treat each other with respect.

Yeah, that's great. And you mentioned competitiveness because one of the things I recommend on Financial Samurai is actually to go to expensive cities because there's more opportunity to create for your job or investment opportunities or whatnot. But you have to survive that cost factor in the initial several years to see if you can make it.

How competitive would you say it is to get a book deal to author and illustrate a children's book? Honestly, I have been at this for over a decade. My daughter was three or four when I wrote my first manuscript, which I tried to shop around and it didn't go anywhere.

But then I had a friend who was an established illustrator and he kind of got me hooked up with Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. And that led me to a path where my daughter is 19 now. So it took me that long to get my very first author, illustrator, debut children's picture book.

I illustrated another one earlier, like several years ago, but it's been rough. I won't lie. Yeah. Well, you did The Turtle Ship, which I thought was an amazing book. Thank you. And how did you get that opportunity? That was a weird story. So I'd been with this agent for a while and nothing, nothing, nothing is going on.

And then I go to LA for a conference and we have an opportunity to showcase our portfolios and art editors and other agents, publishers look through everybody's portfolio. I come back to New York City and I finally get an email from my agent saying, "Would you like to work with this publisher who has this manuscript about a boy and his pet turtle and together they design a battleship?" I was like, "That sounds cool.

Yeah." And about 10 days later, I get another email from this author who says, "Hey, I saw your portfolio. I love it. Just giving you the heads up. I sent a link to my publisher to your website because I would love you to illustrate my book. It's about a boy and his pet turtle.

That is so interesting. I have two people who are interested in me designing a book about a boy and his turtle." And it turned out that it was the same book. It was The Turtle Ship. So they had independently found me. Wow. So one through my agent and then the other one, because I had gone to LA, this author Helena Kuri, she's based in California.

And so she had seen my portfolio in the showcase. Okay. So it sounds to me like there is an element of grit and endurance where you just kind of got to keep on going, putting yourself out there and networking to hopefully one day get a literary agent and a book deal.

It's all about grit. It's how long you can last in the game so that you're available when the opportunities come up. I actually had to change agents. I was getting frustrated not getting anywhere. And it's very scary to change agents because it's a little bit like being married. You can't talk to other agents until you divorce your actual agent.

I was taking a chance. I felt like maybe I would never get another agent. Right. That's interesting. Is the children's literary agent community pretty small, too? It's all part of the same community, so I imagine. Although I don't know that many agents personally. Okay. Well, tell us more about success in terms of a children's book because as a father of a couple of children, four and almost seven, I read children's books all the time.

Seven years in a row, almost every single day. And I see some great ones and I see some ones that are like, "Eh." But the great ones, the bestsellers like Moe Williams, for example, they're good, but how do they become great? How do they become all-time bestsellers? I feel like publishers try and figure that out, too.

And I don't know if anybody has an actual answer because I feel like a lot of it does have to do with luck. But Moe Williams, he actually created with Sesame Street for a good while. His sensibilities, I feel like, are spot on for what people in general, not just kids, will find funny.

People love to be entertained. There's a lot of heart there. What are some of your favorite books and what attracts you to them? I like the Piggy and Gerald books. I think that's Moe Williams, right? Yeah. And they're simple, too, right? Yeah, they're very simple and they all have stories and lessons.

One of the most favorite books that I've read is The Giving Tree. That's by Shel Silverstein. And it's pretty deep, very deep about a tree that gives everything to a young boy who grows up to be a man who neglects the tree. And then the man comes back and says, "I want more and more." And then The Giving Tree gives everything until she's only a stump.

These stories are so powerful and the lessons they convey are so powerful. I know there's several others. The ones that have lessons that can not only entertain and teach are my favorite children's books. And that's one of the key elements of your book. Tell us about your book and how Piano Wants to Play came about, that idea.

I want to touch on something you said, though, about lessons. You were saying that books with lessons really strike a chord with you. But I want to challenge that. Is it so much the lesson as it is just the emotions that they touch on? You know, the idea of you have empathy for this nurturing tree, like you're a parent yourself.

You would give your whole self for your children, right? Much the way that tree gave her all to this one being that she loved more than anything. And I think that emotional connection is what really cements that book in your being consciousness. Sure. My book, like on the surface level, yes, it's about a musician's connection with her instrument.

It's told from the point of view of the piano. And we all love to express ourselves as human beings. We're social animals. And so we express ourselves through speech, through music, through art, all these ways of expression. Imagine you're a piano. It's like your form of expression would be sound, except the only time you can express yourself is if you have a musician.

So the challenge that the piano faces is it needs a musician to have a voice. And it didn't start out this way, but as I was writing it, I felt like I wanted to explore the idea of how it's important for us to have a voice. Like if you cannot express yourself, can you really fully exist?

Like during the story, the little girl who learns music with the piano grows up and she leaves. And the piano is left behind with her brother, who's this horrible musician, could not care less about learning the piano. And together they have like this really wretched relationship where piano is making horrible sound.

But even making a horrible sound is better than not being able to make any sound. To be able to have no voice, it's like you're a skeleton. Can you fully exist? Even if life is terrible, at least you get to complain about it, right? But imagine you're having this horrible time and you just have to eat it.

You can't say anything. It's like important for us to be heard. Yeah. You conjure up an image of, I think, a man who was completely paralyzed for years and years, but he could only blink his one eye. I think I know what you're talking about. The whole book was written by this man blinking, right?

I mean, that's unbelievable. Yeah. And so, is there a parallel to this in terms of the idea of being able to express yourself and sometimes we aren't or society doesn't allow us to? Is there any kind of deeper meaning in that regard? I mean, I'm just thinking of it as like a fundamental need for all of us.

Like in the States, we're pretty lucky that we can be obnoxiously loud and not be thrown in jail for it, right? Yeah, that's true. Well, what about creativity? How do you think creativity works for you? How did this idea come about and how did the story arc evolve? Was it like thinking about it in one sitting, at the dinner table, for a walk?

How does that work for you? This story took forever. Okay. On top of, the publishing industry already works really slowly. It takes like two years from the time you sign your contract to the time your book gets out onto a shelf. And then on top of that, I'm just slow to begin with.

So this story, it began with one of the seeds was becoming a musician is so much work. And if you're a child and you pick up an instrument for the first time, and in the beginning it's novelty, but after a while, it just becomes a lot of work to try and make music.

But you just have these like really off sounds coming out. And it takes like, I don't know, a few weeks before you really hear like the fruits of your hard work. And I wondered, you know, what would help a kid follow through with learning an instrument? What if your instrument was a partner in this endeavor to learn music?

What if your instrument had its own spirit, was its own character? Then you have a friend as you're going through all this hard work. So it kind of started with that little seed. Okay. And why do you think we end up neglecting things or people important to us over time?

Why do we give up on the things that brought us joy when we were growing up? Or frankly, the people that were closest to us when we were young or or not even young, just adults, and then we lose touch. What's going on here? Because we're always changing, like we're evolving.

And that's what makes life interesting. We have so much capacity for growth and change. And as you grow and change, things that attract you are different or your needs are different. You know, marriages, people are in love in the beginning. And then after, I don't know, a decade or so, it's like people continue evolving and then suddenly you discover your partner is no longer the ideal match for you.

Same with friends, you know, it's like, yeah, especially that's kind of traumatic. I think like kids for kids who grow up in the same school that they have to lose each other sometimes. And it's not because somebody moves. It's just that their interests are different and they met so-and-so who they think are cool, but then their old friend doesn't think so.

Yeah, it's complicated, I guess. And it's hard as they say for adults to make new friends. And it might be because we're so set in our ways and set in the things that we want to do. I'm not sure about that. Yeah. And plus the phone, you know, how stunted our social skills are becoming, or at least with younger people, because it's so easy to communicate by texting on a phone that you don't talk to other people.

And you forget those social skills. Especially for people who are introverted and shy, it takes courage even just to like go to the cashier and like have an interaction. It's like there's always like just a slight grain of anxiety there. So if you give into that anxiety and just like, you know, it's easy to say things if you can hide behind your screen.

You know, the internet is full of trolls, anonymous, and it's so easy to type things. But it's harder to say things to people's faces. Yeah. Well, you actually brought up something interesting. I mean, I think what you're saying is true. So do you think that creators, children's book artists, writers are more introverted than the average person?

Are there more introverts as creators? Yeah. Every time we get together for a conference, like one of the things that's mentioned is how all the introverts are coming out of their cave. They're forcing themselves out. You know, because they recognize the value of community. And it's such a hard thing to do to get published in children's books that the connection you find in a community is one of the things that will keep you going.

Yes. I totally believe that. Community is awesome. To have like-minded people who are nice, kind, and sharing support your work and also share ideas. It's so huge. What about the financial angle? Because I'm assuming the vast majority of children's book authors and creators are not there to get rich.

Or are there some who are like, you know what, I think I'm going to make it huge one day and this is my ticket out. No. Although I was quite surprised when I first spoke with my current literary agent. She said, "So what's your thought?" I can't remember how she phrased it, but basically she said, "Do you want to do this as a full-time career?" And of course it is, but I feel like you would have to be so lucky to be able to have enough work to sustain a comfortable lifestyle doing this work.

When I did "The Turtle Ship," everybody else had another job. Helena Kool-Reed writes these beautiful stories, and she's a lawyer. And my production manager, he also writes children's books. My art director, she's like an award-winning bookmaker herself, like illustrator, author, and everybody has a day job. Right. It brings up an interesting point because there is this, I guess, knock against the journalism community in New York City because it seems like journalism doesn't pay very well.

So maybe the knock or maybe the stereotype is that you have to already come from a wealthy family to be able to be a journalist or creator to be able to survive long enough. And it's the same thing with, if you see a lot of the most successful entrepreneurs in America.

Bill Gates, for example, is Bill Gates III, and he grew up in a wealthy community in Seattle. His dad was wealthy. And there's the founder of, let's see, Snapchat. Amazon. Oh, Amazon. Yeah. Everybody kind of was wealthy. So it's kind of sad in a way that you have to be wealthy enough to be able to be poor enough to work on your creations.

Yeah. It's really unfair. It skews towards higher income folks because, as we talked about grit, you just have to last long enough till that opportunity arises where you can get your foot in the door. That takes money. That takes resources. So somebody who has to work three jobs to make ends meet, you're not going to have the brain space, let alone time, to create.

Creativity needs time. It's already enough work just to be creative. So to do that on top of all your other activities that you have to do to survive is a lot. How do you think we can change that? Give people who don't have as much means the opportunity to create.

I'm just wondering, what is the solution? How can we help? I know that in most creative programs, people do offer scholarships. I've been the recipient of a couple of scholarships. The first time I went to Highlight Foundation, they're basically like a retreat for children's book authors and illustrators. I went there for a workshop.

It was like a three to five day workshop where you learn how to do a good author's visit or an illustrator visit. It was great. They feed you every day. You don't have to think about doing the dishes. All your job to do is learn and focus on what it is you love to do.

That was through a scholarship. Then SCBWI, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, also offered me an award, which funded my next trip there. Oh, cool. So it's money. Basically, at the end of the day, it's money to buy the time that you need. I heard of one creative who learned how to invest money just so that he could buy himself some time to create his work.

He was teaching other artists how to do the same. Yeah. Well, I think one thing that listeners can do is support our artists by buying their work. So if folks want to support Colleen, please go to your local bookstore or online and pick up a copy of Piano Wants to Play.

That's something that I hope more of us can do is support writers and artists, because goodness knows, writing and art doesn't pay well for, I would say, 99% of the people out there. Yeah. And it's tough. It's a real labor of love. Yeah. It is a real labor of love.

You have to enjoy writing and creating art to sustain yourself. Otherwise, there's no way I could sustain Financial Samurai since 2009, three posts a week for that many years in a row. If I didn't enjoy writing and interacting with the community, there's no way. I would have done something else.

And if I wanted to do this for the money, I would have quit long ago because it's pretty soul-sucking if you want to be a creative to make money. It hurts the soul. Yeah. I mean, I do this not even just because I love it. It's just that I can't stop doing it.

So I remember thinking when I got out of college, "I'm going to go get something that can give me a living wage." But I couldn't stop doing the creative work. I came to New York to do fiction writing. I had spent most of my life doing visual arts. And I just couldn't stay away.

Yeah. No, that's interesting. That is interesting because it's a little bit sad with the way college tuition is going. It's so expensive, right? It's so crazy expensive, public or private school. And one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot, and I've talked to people who go to these very elite private universities that cost a lot of money, right?

And I asked them about their hopes and dreams in their application process to get into these colleges. And they talk about being a writer, artist, starting a nonprofit, saving the world. And then if you look at the data, 60% of these college graduates, elite college graduates, end up going into tech, finance, and consulting, right?

And so I always think to myself, what happened to changing the world on a humanitarian way, you know? It's expensive. It's expensive to help the world. I know. It's so sad. I know. And it's like even just individual integrity is difficult to maintain in reality. Just like work politics, it's like you find people who really would like to point out issues that their organization or workplace are having, and they keep silent because they don't want retribution.

And it's hard when you need to work to survive. I know. I totally hear you. I mean, whether you have funny things going on at the workplace, or you have a micromanager boss, or you're just doing something you just really don't like, but you need the paycheck and you need the, what, healthcare benefits, you know?

How do you manage healthcare benefits? Well, New York State Affordable Healthcare Act, so just going on to, for New York State, you go on to New York State of Health and they subsidize your health plan if you don't make a certain amount of money. And at some point, you qualify for Medicaid as well.

Got it. And every year you reapply. Most of my co-workers don't even bother with that. They just go without healthcare, which drives me nuts, especially when they're muralists who have to work on scaffolding and it's dangerous and they don't have healthcare. Well, hopefully, I thought the Affordable Care Act was like, everybody is guaranteed coverage or something.

I got to look into that. No? No, because there's this, well, they've changed it recently too, but there was like a segment of the population who makes too much to qualify for Medicaid, but at the same time, they don't make enough that even with subsidies, it was too difficult to have healthcare.

So they would just end up like paying whatever penalty there was for not having healthcare. And then I can't remember what's gone on in the past few years, but. Got it. Well, let's conclude with some action items or first, maybe we'll talk about if you could rewind time 10, 15 years ago, is there anything you would have done differently to get on this successful path to creating a children's book?

You were talking about elite educations and college degrees. I don't think I needed an expensive graduate degree to do what it is that I do today. The returns on that investment are very low. But the thing I do appreciate about getting my graduate degree is it brought me to New York City because I was terrified of coming to this city.

It has this reputation of being like, you're going to get mugged as soon as you step off the bus. But it's been like the best decision I've made, I think, in terms of life choices, terms of my creative work. It has fed me as an artist, diversity. I grew up overseas, always in a different country every two, three years.

And New York City is filled with so many cultures that it's comfortable here for me. Okay. That's good. It's like a path that you would take again, which is always nice to hear. And for those who want to be children's book authors, what advice would you give them to start?

Read a lot of children's books. Society of Children's Book Writers/Illustrators was really good. And they're an international organization. Going to those conferences gave me an education about children's books, what publishers are looking for. There is stuff you can find online as well, just like the format. Did you know that most children's books are 32 pages and that the word count should be definitely not more than 1,000?

A lot of people will show me their manuscripts and they'll say, "What do you think?" And it'll be way too long. It's like 500, 600 words is the sweet spot. So there are little things like that that you can learn either online or through SCBWI. And then discipline in terms of always be writing or drawing something.

Just keep your hand on it because it's very easy to lose sight of. I've spent many months where I don't do anything with KidLit just because I'm so inundated with my other work as a teacher artist. And that's not good. You always have to be doing something with it.

And then put your portfolio out there on the internet. Yeah. You have to have a website. People have to be able to find you. You have to call people to that website. If you have social media, great. Instagram. You get to share what you're working on. You get to show off your skills to people, create your following.

Right, right. Yeah. What a journey. For those just getting started, I'm excited for y'all, for anybody just getting started to try to create something from nothing because it's really fun. It's really fun to come up with an idea and then to see it come into the real world. It's almost addicting.

So Colleen, it's been great chatting with you for this past 30 plus minutes. Thanks. If people want to support your work, find you, where should they go? Piano Wants to Play and Turtleship are both available wherever books are sold. Go on Amazon or you can ask at your local bookstore also.

My website is ckongsavage.com. So that's C-K-O-N-G-S-A-V-A-G-E.com. That's basically all the work that I do. Graphic design as well as illustration. You can find me on social media too. Instagram. Great. Well, I'll definitely link in the show notes to where people can find you. All right. Well, that's good. So what's next for the day?

I just signed on to do this book on the history of the fortune cookie. Oh, that's a great topic. Is that going to be a children's book or educational book? It's going to be a children's book. And get this, did you know that there's a back and forth between Los Angeles and San Francisco, but I think most people agree that the fortune cookie originated in San Francisco, the Japanese tea garden.

Did you know that it was a Japanese American that invented the fortune cookie, not a Chinese American, as most people would think. I didn't know. That's going to be interesting. I know. Wait, so this is a new book deal or? Yes. Oh. Yes. Well, congratulations. I just signed on like a couple of weeks ago and I've got the manuscript so I get to learn more about fortune cookies and it's just really cool.

It's like have diagrams of fortune cookie making machine. You're going to have to come to San Francisco to do some research. Yes. Research, research. Awesome. That's awesome. Congratulations. It's the first I heard about this so that's great. And that's it. Just keep those winds coming. Keep going. Keep grinding.

You never know what could happen. You just got to keep at it. All right, everyone. Well, thanks for listening to the Financial Samurai Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd appreciate a positive review, share and a subscribe. Every single review means a lot. And if you want to keep in touch, check out FinancialSamurai.com/news and definitely go and support Colleen Kong Savage's work.

Congratulations again and thanks for coming on. Thank you, Sam. All right. Take care. Bye. you