Mark interviews artist, author, and indie bookstore owner Donovan Scherer about his writing, his art, and his store in downtown Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Prior to the interview, Mark welcomes new patrons, shares recent comments, a personal update and a word about this episode's sponsor.

This episode is sponsored by an affiliate link to Manuscript Report. Use code MARK5 at checkout and save $5.00 off your own personalized report.

In their interview, Mark and Donovan talk about:

Donovan background as an illustrator creating various characters, and then eventually moving on to writing middle grade chapter books
Never really learning about how to sell books online, but rather through in person events like comic book conventions
The popularity of the ZomBeans (zombies) Donovan has drawn, including unique caricatures of his patrons
The idea of working on a "talking flowchart" to help understand what people gravitate towards
How Donovan has been doing local markets for 15 years -- since 2010
The regular festivals Donovan has started running in the parking lot across the street from his store
Acquiring the Studio Moonfall 400 square foot store in 2019
What Donovan carries in his store
How Donovan acquired ten pallets of books from a library that was wanting to move them
Half of what Donovan sells in his own store being his own work -- meaning that his average margin is much higher than most other bookstores
The CUT THE LINE promo where authors can get their books featured in the store and via the store's socials by providing 8 copies of their book to Studio Moonfall
And more...

After the interview Mark reflects on the incredible effort and unique approach to creating his own store in order to ensure his work was available in a brick and mortar space. He also talks about the various margins that are typical for bookstores and how Donovan has navigated that with some ingenius moves.

Mark also shares a special offer for patrons related to the CUT THE LINE promotion Donovan has in place.

Links of Interest:

Donovan Scherer is an author and illustrator creating worlds of adventure with a sense of humor and a little bit of dread that everything will go terribly, terribly wrong.

In 2009, he started the Fear & Sunshine series of middle-grade illustrated novels and began his work in book publishing. Along with developing more of his own series across novels, comics, video games, and animation, he also works with independent authors to help bring their stories to life.

In 2019, he opened the Studio Moonfall in downtown Kenosha, Wisconsin - an art studio and bookstore featuring his endlessly increasing body of work and highlighting other local and independent authors and artists.

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast ("Laser Groove") was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

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