Kakie Fitzsimmons is the Vice President and Co-Founder of Farmer’s Hat Productions, an independent publishing company for her brand, Bur Bur and Friends. Her company strives to encourage childhood learning, early literacy, and active play through exciting, educational products featuring culturally-diverse characters. I personally love Anna Goes Hiking for the lively pictures of animals, nature exploration, and the whole family enjoying the great outdoors. Kakie, who also co-authors the Bur Bur and Friends books, graciously let me interview her for this week’s Art Crush Wednesday.
What was the motivation behind the Bur Bur and Friends series?
My dear friend, business partner and co-author, JoAnne Pastel and I have children who are biracial and thought it would be a great idea to have a children's book series that reflects the real world as we see it today. We believe that children should have books that reflect children that look like themselves and their friends. Although multicultural characters and families are reflected in the series, these books are for all children. The characters in the books are based off of our own children and their friends.
How and when did you get started?
In late June of 2004, JoAnne decided she wanted to write children's books and asked me if I would take look at an ABC Boating book she had started. I loved it immediately and she asked me if I would ever like to co-write with her. Writing is a passion of mine, so I eagerly complied. Initially we met for lunch to go over some different ideas and talk more about what our concept might look like. After that meeting, we both began to compile our own lists of ideas for the books. I still have mine and we have been able to incorporate some of those thoughts into the series. But it was JoAnne who came up with the idea for our niche, which was write books about sports, outdoors and active play.
We did all kinds of research and didn't find anything like it that uses a cast of multicultural characters in a series. In fact, it surprised us a bit because we were sure that we couldn't have been the first ones that came up with a concept like this. After pouring through databases, surveying teachers, librarians, book sellers we knew we had something. We found an illustrator and made a decision to formally found our business, Farmer's Hat Productions in 2005.
We also had to figure out how and where we would launch the brand and products. We held a successful four day national product launch at the Mall of America in the summer of 2007. We were on major television networks in Boston, Chicago and Minneapolis. We had stories written about is in various publications across the country. We partnered with Kare-11's Minnesota Bound and held a fishing clinic, coloring contests, had a theme song professionally written and produced, mascots made of our first two characters, created choreography to perform with the children, hosted appearances of CRUNCH from the Minnesota Timberwolves and TC Bear of the Minnesota Twins. In addition, we had local personalities Joe Schmidt and Jearalyn Steele read stories to the children.
We are fortunate in that our books are available through major distributors such as Ingram, Baker and Taylor, Follett and more. We are thrilled that all four books in the series have won multiple awards that include the 2008 Teacher's Choice Award for the Family, iParenting Media Awards and the Silver Mom's Choice Awards.
What kind of challenges did you experience starting your own brand, developing your own products, and publishing your own books?
One of our very first challenges was how to move forward on a concept like this and not share it with the world. We were concerned someone might take the idea and run with it. As a result, we asked everyone who wanted to meet with us to sign a confidentiality agreement. In most cases, if they declined to sign, it was highly unlikely we would visit with them. We had to be careful to talk in general terms and not reveal our niche. When we started, we didn't know much at all about the publishing industry so we did allot of research to learn about the industry, our target market, projections and so much more. We made a decision to self-publish early on because we knew we wanted to retain the rights to our characters so that we could one day license them out.
We are co-authors of an award winning children's book series, but at Farmer's Hat Productions, we are also a children's product company. We knew we were building the brand which means we had to be more than a just children's publishing company. As a result, we had to learn where to find resources to create prototype dolls and puzzles and get them to a point where they were ready to be manufactured and then launched.
Designing a compelling web presence was important and I think our sites convey that well. We partnered a terrific company called SyntheticKit in Minneapolis to design the layout. As a result of this terrific collaboration, our site for children, http://burburandfriends.com/ was a semi-finalist in the Advertising Federation of Minnesota's prestigious competition called, "The Show". At the site, children can come to meet the characters, print off coloring pages and listen to our theme song. We also have a blog.
How do you work to overcome the challenges you encounter?
Challenges are opportunities and it is an ongoing process. It has been an amazing learning experience and we are grateful for every piece of knowledge we have picked up along the way.
What are the next steps for you in expanding the Bur Bur and Friends brand?
In February we will be co-facilitating one of the workshop break-out sessions at the Annual Hubbs Children's Literature Conference at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. We have also been exploring animation.
Are there any new stories in the works?
We are currently working on a basketball book, which will introduce all of the characters in the series. Our hope is to have the basketball book released in the fall of 2009. We also have a soccer book and about 6 other books in concept.
What advice would you offer others who are inspired by your success and want to give it a go for themselves?
Do your research, seek out mentors, ask a lot of good questions and know what you are getting into. Self-publishing (vs. going to a large publisher) has been successful for us, but it isn’t the right answer for everyone. Writing the book is only a small piece of the process. If you are going to self-publish you will need to learn about channels of distribution, marketing, publicity and more. Finally, follow your passion.
Many heartfelt thanks to Kakie for the interview! Learn more about Farmer’s Hat Productions and their delightful books at their website.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011 at 9:00AM 
