Author interview: Dominic Kelly & Kelli Martin

 Synopsis:

Color Me Calm: Adult Relaxation Coloring Book

Amazing Animals Coloring Book for Mental Clarity, Positivity and Stress Relief

Color Me Calm is a Stress Relief Coloring Book for Adults and Teens.

Unlock Your Inner Artist with this Amazing Animals Coloring Book!

Amazing Animal Illustrations to Improve Mental Health, Promote Positivity, and Relieve Stress and Anxiety.

Hey dear readers, I had the pleasure of chatting with Dominic Kelly & Kelli Martin, authors of Color Me Calm, ask them all about writing and their books.

1). Was it difficult to capture both of your voices while creating this amazing book?

Dominic: I have really enjoyed working with Kelli on writing and producing these books. It seems that the sum of our viewpoints and collaboration is always greater than the individual parts. We each have certain strengths that we both acknowledge in each other. I have a music composing and songwriting background, where Kelli has a clothing style, design, and photography background. I think this makes the books very strong because we know when to defer to each other’s opinion. It may be because we have been married for nearly 25 years, and we’ve learned to work together well along the way!

Kelli: We have not had any problems with capturing both of our voices in our books so far. We discuss our new book ideas all the time and we are usually on the same page with what we want to do next. Sometimes we are both researching book ideas of topics that we are more individually interested in, so to bring a passion and expertise to each publication. Throughout the book production process we are reading and collaborating on each paragraph of text and each illustration, so both our unique perspectives are always present in each new book. We both interact with the amazing illustrators and production assistants we hire for each project, which has been wonderful to get to know them.

2). What are your influences when writing Color Me Calm?

When writing and producing the Color Me Calm Adult Relaxation Coloring Book, we were inspired by other amazing coloring books that we have seen and purchased on Amazon, as well as our desire to focus our adult coloring books on topics of mental health, positivity, mental clarity, stress relief and relaxation. We want to provide a healthy way for adults to unwind and find peace in their hectic lives. We have been fortunate in our other business endeavors, and this publishing company is all about giving back to society and making a positive impact on the lives of kids and adults of the world in any way we can.

3). Do you have a regular writing routine when working on a book?

Our routine when writing or producing a new low content or medium content book is usually an idea that one of us has that we bring to our next meeting to discuss. We meet every morning, with our coffee and our dogs, and discuss new book ideas, and sometimes great book ideas are developed in those creative meetings as well. We run through to do lists, for our businesses as well as our personal lives, and we split up those tasks for the day. Dominic: I also worked for some years as a software developer and I learned these production techniques of “agile meetings” and the use of “Kanban boards”, which is a simple way to see big things that need to be accomplished, and move them along the board from pre-production to completed. Most of the time we don’t get everything done, but that’s OK! The daily tasks, book writing, and illustration production things we need to do get pushed to the next day, and we try to stay fluid and calm about everything, and enjoy the process. Staying consistent and always getting a bit of something done we feel is key to long term success in any business endeavor.

4). What was your favorite book growing up?

We both really loved Roald Dahl books, Judy Blume, and S.E. Hinton. We grew up in the 80s when there were so many amazing and pioneering novels for young readers and teen readers. We are focusing now on a new book picture book for kids about positivity, healthy living, and the joys of the outdoors. We are also producing more art therapy books for adults, coloring books for kids, and a novel young readers that is in the writing and production phase that we are very excited about.

5). Is there anything you would like to highlight or discuss about the new book?

We really like to focus on healthy living topics, both mental and physical, relationships, gratitude, and producing low and medium content books that encourage positivity and focus on increasing happiness for our readers. We hope that our books bring some joy, peace of mind, and encourage creativity for our readers. We sincerely hope people enjoy Color Me Calm: Adult Relaxation Coloring Book and our new Halloween themed coloring books for kids, Trick or Treat: A Halloween Coloring Book Adventure for Toddlers and Kids and Pumpkin Coloring Patch: A Cute and Spooky Halloween Coloring Book for Creepy Coloring and Doodling.

Thank you so much! All the Best,

Dominic & Kelli