Guest Post: Anne Newsome

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And now…

“You can’t eat all of that!” she emphatically said to me, as I sat down with my plate full of food. “You’ve never seen me eat, have you?” I replied, equally emphatically. “Oh, yeah. You saw me eat when we went to the Beth Moore conference, but the food at Jim and Nick’s was a lot spicier that I remembered. You saw me eat at the Mustard Seed, too. I can EAT! Don’t you remember?”

Hello! My name is Anne Newsome, and this was a conversation that took place at a recent Christmas party between me and a friend from church. They say to never trust a skinny chef, but as the petite wife of a chef, I can tell you that if the chef does not look like he enjoys the food he is cooking, it’s possible that he simply has a high metabolism! I enjoy eating every bit as much as my husband does, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at me.

This is by no means bragging. Trust me. I full well know that just because I may have inherited good metabolism, my health still largely hinges on the dietary choices I make! And so, since my health is a high priority, I do try to eat well.

The same goes for feeding my children and trying to instill in them the importance of a healthy diet. This, of course, can be difficult when your children are:

1) Too young to really grasp these concepts; or

2) Picky eaters.

Picky eaters. What kind of bad luck is it to have foodie parents whose children are picky eaters?! Okay. I would not say they are severe cases. As a matter of fact, they are hopefully just “normal picky eater” children who go in and out of those phases. Nonetheless, it does not make it any easier or any less stressful when we meet resistance when we sit down to eat, serve the children, and hear, “I don’t like it.”

This is what inspired my husband and me to write our first recipe eBook, What to Cook for Dinner for Picky Eaters. My husband is a chef, professionally trained by the prestigious Johnson and Wales Culinary Arts Program. He is not currently working in the restaurant industry, but food and cooking is a passion that he enjoys immensely. So we decided to launch a “D.R.E.A.M. Catchers” book giveaway a couple of years ago. It has been a fun experience sharing recipes, lunchbox ideas, and more.

When we decided to write an eBook, we knew there were already tons of great cookbooks out there. So we decided to focus on our experiences as parents feeding children who can be picky eaters to help provide some recipes and other resources for other parents and caregivers struggling with the same challenge.

Our book includes tips from what we have learned as we have tried different things to help get us through those picky eater phases. Some of these tips come from our family Nutritionist, who helped us identify what we suspected were food sensitivities as we researched ways to help our son with his Eczema. And it also includes a list of resources that we have found helpful in feeding picky eaters.

This is a topic we know is important to many parents, because as parents, we all want the very best for our children. We want them to eat good, healthy foods and to grow into healthy adults. It can be stressful when the food battles begin. The information we share in our book has helped reduce that stress for us, reduce the number of battles at meal time and even win some of them.

We are working on another book and hope to have it ready some time later this year. We learned a lot during the process of publishing the first one, from writing a strong title to writing content for each chapter, compiling recipes and resource information, proofreading, editing and then learning about the different formats for eBooks.

After coming across a report, How to Sell 100 Books a Day, by Ryan Deiss, we decided to publish the book through the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select program. There are pros and cons to this, but we felt the pros would outweigh the cons, particularly as new authors.

We also had no idea how to do format the book to meet the KDP requirements. I did some research and was getting ready to hire someone to do the formatting for me when I came across a great instructional video with brief step-by-step instructions. I am also a Squidoo Lensmaster and have created a lens on this topic, Picky Eaters: Resources, Recipe and Tips from a Nutritionist and Chef, which also includes more information about the Ryan Deiss report.

I am relatively new to Squidoo, but from what I’ve learned so far, it can be helpful for authors in book promotion and marketing. When my eBook was published, I had just earned an opportunity for one of my lenses to rotate as an ad on its category page. The timing could not have been more perfect. I created a lens around the topic of the book, Picky Eaters: Resources, Recipe and Tips from a Nutritionist and Chef.

Being new to the world of publishing, I am still learning quite a bit about the entire process, but these are some of the most helpful things I have learned so far. As I learn and grow as an author, I plan to continue sharing the information that I believe will be helpful for others through the Squidoo platform. I would love to connect with you on Google+ where I also share updates.

I’d like to thank Cheryl for the opportunity to share with you today, and I wish you great success as an aspiring author, current author, parent … whatever other endeavors you have!

BIO:

Anne Newsome is a Wife, Mommy to a 6-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter, an Author and a Granddaughter. She and her husband, John, a Chef trained by the prestigious Johnson and Wales University Culinary Arts program, have co-authored What to Cook for Dinner for Picky Eaters to share recipes, tips and resources they have found most helpful as parents in addressing the picky eater phases of childhood. You can visit their website, Flayve.com, for ideas for good recipes to try with your family or connect with them on Facebook.

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