Children's Book Authors' Interview Blocked By Good Intentions; Podcast Episode to the Rescue!

Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors

Welcome to Episode Five of the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors podcast. (This podcast show can be found on Kaboose on the Rocky Mountain Bear website.)

This podcast episode is a little out of character for our podcast; however, as children's book readers and authors, we must share some of our challenges as authors.

In this episode, you hear Papa Rick and Kyra being interviewed by Canada's national radio station, CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), and even something as Canadian as CBC Radio doesn't always guarantee you are recognized as Canadian content.

As Children's Book readers, we hope you enjoy this podcast and hear how Kyra and I, Canadians with all Canadian content, could not publish this radio interview on Facebook because of our social media restrictions in Canada.

Many great children's book authors and readers may not even be aware of the challenges faced by Canadian social media laws.

Our dedication to introducing children's book authors to as many children's book readers as possible required Kyra and me to find a way around these laws.

We did find a way to get around the Government's Bill C-18, The Online News Act.

This legislation prevents us from posting our Canadian content news stories on Facebook and Instagram.

How can Canadian content not be viewed by Canadians?

Please listen to our interview on CBC Radio, and you will decide how we are not Canadian content.

The host interviewed us, Chris dela Torre of The HomeStretch, on the CBC Radio Station based in Calgary.

As children's book authors, Granddaughter Kyra Dumoulin and Grandfather Papa Rick Harris, we are proud to have found a way to make this CBC Radio Interview available to you as listeners through our podcast show, Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors.

Enjoy and know that good intentions don't always happen as the government planned.

Please visit our website, www.kaboosetherockymountainbear.com. We would love it if you could purchase our book, The Adventures of Kaboose the Rocky Mountain Bear.

HomeStretch CBC Radio

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-97-the-homestretch

Mentioned in this episode:

Children's Book Authors Radio Interview Blocked By Good Intentions

Children's Book Authors Radio Interview Blocked by Good Intentions As a self-published children's book author, we never thought the government's good intentions would hurt small business people as the government tries to prevent big tech firms from controlling the country's social media. Getting your book recognized as a children's book author is not as easy. In all of our research as children's book authors, the real work begins once you have written and published the book. As a self-published author, you have likely spent a small fortune writing, editing, illustrating, and formatting your book. Now, you want the world to read your book, but how do you get the word out? You hear the word marketing often, but as a self-published author, you would need a budget of hundreds to thousands of dollars on social ads, print ads or any major media outlets to get you the recognition you need to sell a ton of your books. Unfortunately, most self-published children's book authors don't have these funds. You must hit the street and drum up your support. When we published our first book, I contacted the local newspaper. The local newspaper was looking for a human-interest story and loved the idea of a granddaughter and grandfather writing a children's book together. They also loved that the book's story was about the main character's adventures in their backyard. We used a historic town in the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada. The newspaper article was well-written and attracted the eye of a major Canadian radio station producer. The producer tracked us down and conducted the initial interview. She loved our background story of how our book came to life and booked us to be interviewed in the two largest radio markets in Alberta, Calgary and Edmonton. We were so excited. We planned to post these radio interviews on our social media accounts and create buzz. Please listen to our radio interview, and you will decide if any content impedes our fundamental democracy as Canadians. If you are listening in any other country in the world, listen to our interview, and you decide if this interview would interfere with your fundamental freedom for you or your country's independent press. (place CBC Radio Interview here) Unfortunately, this is where the Canadian government news content legislation blocked our dreams of using these radio interviews to promote our self-published children's books. The Canadian government created and passed Bill C-18, which received royal assent. The Department of Canadian Heritage has created regulations through the act and guide. "A free and independent press is fundamental to our democracy," Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said. "It levels the playing field by putting the power of big tech in check and ensuring that even our smallest news business can benefit through this regime and receive fair compensation for their work." However, thanks to the Heritage Minister, Canadians are blocked from accessing Canadian news content. I know this is not the spirit of the legislation, but this happened to us as self-published Canadian authors. As a result of Bill C-18, we can not post our CBC Radio interviews on Facebook or Instagram. What were we to do? Fighting Big Government was the energy we couldn't expend. We decided to create a Children's podcast show, Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors, to help market our book and help other children's book authors promote their books. You might be asking how creating a podcast can circumvent Bill C-18. If you listened to our radio interview, you know we reformat our interviews into audio content and release it to the public as a podcast. I am sure many small business owners trying their darndest to promote their businesses through social media have encountered the same roadblock. But why do we, self-published Children's Book authors, have to fight Big Government? Do we want you to fight our battles for us? No. Please share if you enjoyed our radio interview. We would appreciate it if you could forward this podcast episode to friends and family, which would help us reach more readers. We intended to be interviewed as radio guests. And if you think our children's book, The Adventures of Kaboose the Rocky Mountain Bear, should be in your home library, please purchase it.