Lisa is all about writing books for kids (and their adults) that help them fall in love with eating healthy food – even broccoli! Her passion for this shines through in her cleverly written-in-rhyme children’s picture books. The fact that she is also a nutritionist means her stories are filled with evidence-based information on how these vegetables help our little ones to grow well. I am stoked to have Lisa share her self-publishing journey with Birchy’s Books as I am personally a big fan of her stories as is my 3 year old. Read about her inspiring self-publishing journey below, but first…
Lisa’s favourite book from childhood?
All the Jewels of Fairyland by Shirley Barber
Lisa’s kids favourite picture books?
Aiken (4 years old) loves Bocci the Brave, Rhea (2 years old) loves Dr Red Pepper – they are completely biased though, because I drew them as the main characters in those books.
In this Article
Hello! I'm Lisa Baker!
- A mummy of 2 (Aiken, who is 4, and Rhea who is 2 and a half),
- Nutritionist (working in product development for Nutra Organics),
- and most recently a self-publishing author/illustrator, publishing under my own small business ‘Coffee Table Nutrition’.
Before becoming a nutritionist, I had managed to get myself a bit confused with all the misinformation out there in the area of nutrition, so ultimately that led me back to university and ever since then I’ve wanted to write books that could help people understand food better and have better relationships with healthy food.
Self-publishing my first book
My first book (titled ‘The Coffee Table Nutritionist’) took about three years to complete and I released it in April 2023. The Coffee Table Nutritionist was basically designed to be an easy to digest summary of the Nutrition Degree that I did – It’s the book I needed 10 years ago to help me understand how food, metabolism and diets work.
I almost gave up on that one a few times because it was really hard to write, the pictures were all hand painted (which took ages) and there was just so much I didn’t know about publishing.
At this point I probably should have signed up for a course, but because I work in research and development I have a lot of trust in myself and my own ability to ask questions and figure things out as I go, so I just kept going.
The biggest piece of the puzzle that was missing was someone who had the vision, talent and technical know-how to take words and pictures and magically transform them into a cohesive piece of art that could sit proudly on a shelf, in the form of an actual book.
My top tip if you're self-publishing? HIRE A DESIGNER!
Enter Ema Harrison – she’s my friend, work colleague and one of the most talented people on the planet. She became my designer and managed to turn my words and doodles into this finished thing of beauty, and seeing it come together was one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever experienced – so from that point on I was hooked on creating books.
The Secret Adventures of the Dinner Plate Pal’s
Almost as soon as I released The Coffee Table Nutritionist I began work on ‘The Secret Adventures of the Dinner Plate Pal’s’ series – I had become a mother while I was writing The Coffee Table Nutritionist, obviously that’s quite a transformative time and my imagination and priorities really shifted.
The Secret Adventures of the Dinner Plate Pals is designed to cure fussy eating and inspire a love of healthy food from the moment little kids start exploring solids. I started by designing the whole series, mapping out what I wanted to cover, and how it would all come together before I started actually writing each story. There are eight planned in the series, all of them are now written, three of them have been published so far and the 4th is just waiting for me to order the print run (and I have a lot more drawing to do for the remaining 4 haha). I should have the whole series out by October 2026.
Bocci the Brave was the debut Dinner Plate Pal, I released him in November 2023. My kids reaction to Bocci is what really gave me my ‘proof of concept’. Aikey and Rhea genuinely seemed to love the book and it really did help my husband and I convince them to eat Broccoli.
Independent Publishing
So, from that point on it’s been an absolute rollercoaster of creating, business-ing, finding stockists and learning. I’ve had some awesome support from my work, friends, and family.
I sell my books direct from my website coffeetablenutrition.com, and I’m slowly building up a list of stockists that includes:
- Sandy Crab Toy Store,
- Book Face Pacific Fair,
- Tallow and Tide,
- Consciously Clean,
- Bookness,
- Bam Bam Kids Toys,
- Sea Wish Coolangatta,
- Books & Co.,
- Marsden Books,
- Schrodinger’s Books and
- Mewington’s Book Shoppe.
Nutra Organics had even made Bocci the Brave available as a gift with purchase as part of their ‘healthy eater bundle’.
Self-Publishing
The hardest thing about self-publishing has been:
- the expense,
- the time and
- the reach (nothing major haha).
Funding everything yourself is expensive and small print runs means you miss out on that economy of scale.
Doing everything yourself takes a lot of time, there is so much to learn, new relationships to forge, trying to fit everything in around a job and a family means a lot of things move at a glacial pace. And unless you are already a person of great influence, with a substantial following, your reach can be really limited at the start.
Most bookstores only order from distributors, who only distribute for larger publishers, who generally only publish for famous people or existing authors. Being new in the book scene isn’t easy, but you start, and you keep trying one thing at a time and the progress compounds until suddenly you are on a bit of a roll.
Thoughts on Traditional Publishing
I did initially consider traditional publishing (or rather I thought that was the only way to do it) and I did approach a couple of publishers just to receive a few really lovely rejection emails. But I’m really glad ‘plan A’ didn’t work out because I wouldn’t have started my business or own my own work if it had.
Getting an offer from a traditional publisher!
Earlier this year, I was approached by a publisher who really understood the concept of The Dinner Plate Pals and was keen to sign me for the series. Initially I was so excited because it was with a publisher that I really loved and knew they would do an excellent job – so visions of retiring young and living off the royalties for the rest of my life started entering my head.
Unfortunately, the realities of our industry and the awful process known as ‘contract negotiation’ put an end to that dream and I decided to keep the rights to my own work and keep following my own path. So, I’ll be working hard for a while yet, but that actually excites me. I don’t do well without a big project haha.
Thinking of writing and publishing your own book? – go for it!
The only thing I would have done differently if I started again would be to have started sooner. For people out there who are thinking of publishing a book – do it! There is so much more to it and it’s more involved than you could ever imagine, and the only way to learn is by doing.
It’s not ‘hard’, it’s just a lot.
… Also (unless you have all the skills yourself) get a great designer! haha.
Thank you for sharing your self-publishing experience with Birchy’s Books, Lisa!
Next week we hear from Mallory Demmer – a self-published, self-appointed Snail Lady.
