Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello authors.
[00:00:01] Speaker B: I'm Joanne Morel, children's and young adult fiction writer and author of short nonfiction for authors. Thanks for joining me for the hybrid author podcast, sharing interviews from industry professionals to help you forge a career as a hybrid author, both independently and traditionally publishing your books. You can get the show notes for each episode and sign up for your free author pass over at the hybrid author website to discover your writing process, get tips on how to publish productively, and get comfortable promoting your books at www. Dot.
Let's crack on with the episode.
[00:00:42] Speaker C: Hello authors.
I hope you're all keeping well in whatever part of the world you reside and listen to. The podcast in today's interview is with best selling children's author Tim Harris, and we chat about Tim's career in the children's genre, what qualities make for laugh out loud books, Tim's tips for authors looking to make kids laugh out loud, and more so on my author adventure this week. Again, it's all just been book launch related, so if you have been listening to the podcast, you'll know that I'm having a book launch next Thursday, the September 5 at the State Library of Western Australia. Six till 730. I would love for you to join me. Links will be in the show notes and this is for the first in my series, women's fiction contemporary series, and it's called called the writer, the hairdresser, and the nurse, written under my pseudonym, Zara Ellen. So I've been busy doing things like designing a two meter banner of my face and obviously the books, my work, things that I do, these banners are a really cool thing to have. They're quite cheap, actually. They're not too bad. They make you look quite professional. I had some bookmarks ordered and today I went up and got some little edible cupcake toppers of my book, which is really cool. So like the front and back cover of my book. And so that's going to go on the top of those. And that's about all I'm doing, really. I want to keep it quite simple, quite classy, and not too over the top. I'm going to have some nice wine, some nice food and a little bit of ambience for some music, I think, and obviously greet people and then in for the conversation, which is in conversation with general fiction author Sasha Wolseley, who also has many pseudonyms. And Sasha, I feel like we sort of circulate and do a lot of the same things. So I'm really excited that she's the one that's going to be launching it for me, it's hosted by writing WA, which is a writing body for Western Australia. And yeah, it's all coming together really well. I think there's about 60 people coming so far and that's like a big crowd to me. Lots of people I love other people, I probably don't know, industry folks. It's just going to be a big celebration. It's just going to be a big celebration of all my hard work. And yeah, I'm going to just really, really enjoy it. There is a couple bits more to do for it, but at the end of the day, I think most things have sort of come together, even though it feels quite sort of simple. And there's. There still feels like there's been a lot of stuff to organize as well. So I've really been focused on that. I have been thinking about the plot for the next. It's the second book in the series which I will start talking about soon. I can reveal the title is the lawyer, the singer and the server. So these books are all sort of professional titles. They're all told from three women's perspectives. And the main theme throughout the works is friendship. So the writer, the hairdresser and the nurse is long time friends and the next one is new friends. That's kind of circulating in my mind. I've made some notes of making notes here and there, but I plan to launch this book next week. Then it will be. I'll be recording the audiobook the week after and then it's really just heads down focusing on this next in series. I would love to get it out by the end of the year, preferably in November. And. Yeah, so there's lots of big goals, as there always is for me, coming up to the end of the year and always coming up to the end of the year. It's always such a busy time. I have children's birthdays and school holidays and it's always manic, so. And I always rush to get things done. And I've learned a lot over the last few years and I think I'm in a position now where I don't need to be rushing to get things done. It's a case of what happens and what doesn't. But, you know, I'm always over ambitious and I don't think that's a bad thing. I'm not gonna think taking on too much or striving for more or wanting lots is a bad thing. You know, I really don't. But I am obviously getting to understand what is normal and acceptable pace for my life, which I have a lot of other things that require my attention. I'm also going to the launch on Monday night. Local author Tess Wood. She's been on the hybrid author podcast before and she is launching the Venice Hotel. So I'm very excited to go along to that because it's literally ten minutes down the road from me, which is nice considering a lot of the book launches and stuff is always at least an hour, an hour and a bit away drive for me. So sometimes getting to these events and actually getting home takes more than the actual event. But Sasha was like, is also launching this and so I want to go along and obviously see them in action and yeah, get a feel for how all that's going to go. So I'm excited to get back out. There's loads of book launches and there's loads of industry stuff happening in Perth, Western Australia, if you are reside here. We're very lucky September is going off. Even on my book launch, I know about five other events that are happening with various organizations and so yeah, I'm really touched that so many people are coming to mind. But yeah, it's a busy time, busy time for creatives, which is awesome. So if you are not out there and doing stuff, a lot of people have just had book week here, children's bookweek, which is always manic. I've been, I love seeing all the pictures that the authors post and the funny things that they share about what the kids ask them and obviously the bookweek costumes and thought I'd get out of it, but my daughter still had to dress up in high school. So another interesting thing I saw at the book week, which my daughter and all the kids just seem to want to buy the Taylor Swift book, which, you know, whatever floats their boat, I guess they, I wasn't impressed, really, with the, the selection that they had. I suppose, you know, I saw the books that I absolutely loved as a child, the Sweet Valley. It wasn't Sweet Valley High, Sweet Valley twins, which is the younger books from those series, they have repurposed them so they've got new covers and they've also reformatted them into graphic novels. And so I am very, very interested into why they've now done this. I think that it's pretty cool, but I was obsessed with these books when I was younger, so it just spins me out to see them on the shelves again, but obviously not in how they were. And yeah, they're obviously opening up to reach different market, I'm not sure. So I'm going to try and track down who the publisher is and get them on the podcast to find out the reasoning behind this to always think it's really cool when you can see works adapted or done differently. Usually with books it's just a the covers had to freshen up or something like that. But the fact that these books have actually had a whole reformat been reformatted is pretty interesting in my book.
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[00:08:38] Speaker A: Tim Harris is the best selling author of several laugh out loud series for kids, including the Rat Bag series, Toffle Towers, Mister Bam Buckle's remarkables and exploding endings. Tim fills his stories with quirky scenarios, lovable characters and plenty of imagination. Tim's humour with heart writing style has seen his books receive multiple awards, including five koala honour books and a CBCA notable. His books have been published in Australia and the US and have been translated into numerous languages. Oh my goodness. Welcome to the hybrid Author podcast, Tim.
[00:09:12] Speaker D: Thank you so much for having me, Joanne. And I've got to say, well done for all the amazing pronunciations because there are some strange book titles there.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: I was going to ask you actually about the Bambuckles one, but you did it on purpose, didn't you?
We're absolutely thrilled and honoured to have you. Tim, can you tell us how did you get into writing and obviously in the children's genres?
[00:09:34] Speaker D: Yeah, sure. So I never actually wanted to be a writer. My dream job was primary school teaching and so all through high school I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a primary school teacher and I went straight to university from high school and did study uni for three years and then went straight out into primary schools. And so I was a very happy teacher and taught for 15 years in total. But after about ten years of teaching, I decided to just write a short story for one of the classes that I was teaching. It was at a boys school and it was all a class of year one boys. And they had loved the Paul Jennings short stories that I've been reading them. And so I thought I might, you know, write them a similar sort of, you know, quirky short story. And, but I won't tell them that I've written them because I want to give it to them as a, you know, as a present for the end of the year. And so I tested it. And the way I tested it was to essentially print it out and fold it all neatly and put it into the Paul Jennings book. So they thought it was one of his stories because they always got so excited when they saw the, you know, the big, the big green Paul Jennings cover. So I read this story to the class and I remember being so nervous that the book was shaking in my hands and it was, it was difficult to read. And I remember just thinking, this is so different to what I normally read to them because I just, I love reading to the class so much. Anyway, got through it in the end okay and unscathed. But later that afternoon, I received an email from a parent of one of the students in the class and she said, oh dear, mister Harris was just wondering, what was that story that you read the boys today? Because my son really enjoyed it. And so I wrote back and explained that it was a story that I had written just to test out that they were going to receive a copy at the end of the year for a present. You wrote back and said, do you mind if I have a look at it? Can you send it through to me so we can read it again? And I said, sure, no worries, and flicked it off. And a little while later, a few days or a week or so, I think she wrote back and said, thanks so much for sharing your story, Mister Harris. I don't know if you know what I do, but I have a master's in children's literature and I'm heavily involved in the Children's Book Council of Australia. And this is a really great story and I couldn't believe it. And so it was a little nudge of encouragement that made me think, okay, so there might be something there. But also I really enjoyed the process of writing the story. And so I wrote another one for the class and then I think by, by this stage it might have even been the next year. And I just kept writing these short stories. And eventually it led to self publishing, exploding endings, which was later picked up by a small publisher. And that was, that was my start. That got me on my merry way. So it all happened essentially by accident.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: That's one of the best stories I've ever heard.
[00:12:24] Speaker D: With a bit of luck, of course, you always need a bit of luck. And I'm always grateful for that kind email from the parent. And I did dedicate one of my books to her because if it wasn't for her email, that might have been the end of it.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: Oh, I don't know. I sort of believe in fate. I think it probably would have, you would have found your way somehow. But that's truly incredible. So as you kept reading those stories, as the years went on, did you then stand up and say, these are your stories, not Paul Jennings?
[00:12:48] Speaker D: Yes, that's, I gave to the students. I did say that, you know, this is from, from Mister Harris. Yeah.
[00:12:56] Speaker C: Oh no, that's awesome. Have you, have you, had you met.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: Paul Jennings much in your career since.
[00:13:02] Speaker D: Three, yeah, three times, I think, now. And it's always, you know, he probably doesn't even know who I am, but I certainly know who he is.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:11] Speaker D: And I did say to him when he launched his autobiography, which I think was in 2020 or 2021, during all the lockdowns, Adrian Beck, who's a good friend of mine, he was the host of the online event with Paul Jennings, and he sent me a text and said, hey, would you like to jump online and have a chat to Paul during, during this online event? And so I did. And I've told him that story, I think, twice, but in a much shorter version.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, good, good on you. That's funny.
And so, yeah, you said you self published exploding endings and that got picked up. That's really interesting as well. So how did you go about that?
[00:13:52] Speaker D: Yeah, that's right. So I gave up watching television for about six months and was just really committed to, because I was enjoying it so much. And the students, I could just tell they were enjoying these stories and I thought, you know, I really want to, really want to give this a go. So I gave up television for six months and would spend my evenings learning how to self publish and sort of sourcing book designers and illustrators and printing, you know, places and doing all the costings and everything because initially I thought I might just do ebooks because it was at a time where ebooks were becoming a, and you know, it was a lot of it was a hot topic and people were saying it could be the end of the paperback, which I'm so glad it's not. Yeah, yeah. So learn how to do all that. And then I sort of, I just advertised to the class I was teaching and said, look, I've actually self published a book. If you're interested, you're welcome to, you know, to purchase a copy. And the students started buying them and they were really enjoying them. And then I asked the principal who I was working for if I could have some time in bookweek to do some school talks because I knew this was an important part of an author is, you know, getting out and about and hitting the, hitting the road and promoting the books. And he very graciously gave me a couple of days, you know, leave of that pay in bookweek. And so then I went to some other schools and they bought the books and it got to a point where it was almost, yeah, got close to 2000 copies sold from these self published books. And by that stage I thought, okay, this is, this is really fun and I'd like to see if I could take it to a next level of distribution. And so then I started hunting for publishers and the first publisher I sent it to was Penguin Random House. And they were my absolute dream publisher and I didn't hear anything back. And so I moved on to the second one, was a smaller family owned publisher on the south coast of New South Wales. And they did pick it up and it did well. They got it into target and it started selling, you know, really well. And then a year or two later I got an email from Penguin Random House saying, would you like to come and do a series? And so in the end the dream publisher landed, but not for the help of Harbour publishing house, who sadly no longer exists. But that was my, yeah, that was my first break.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: Oh, that's incredible. I think that's such a great story and I love how you just went after it and I feel like all, everything just aligned as well for you there, having the teaching background and meant to be. But that's, that's great. Well, tell us, tell us about your books, you know, and what makes them laugh out loud reads for kids. What do you deem makes, you know, what's the qualities there that you think gets kids laughing?
[00:16:27] Speaker D: Yeah, well, humor is definitely objective, so not everyone will find, you know, my books funny. But I do remember early on, this was during the self published course, I was at a Bible study one night and the Bible study leader had bought a copy to give to his son. And halfway through this evening Bible study meeting, we just heard laughter coming down the hallway. Like, uncontrollable laughter. And in the end, the. The minister's wife went to investigate and she came back and she said, he's reading your book to him. He finds it so hysterical. So that was really cool experience. Hearing that was the first time I'd ever heard someone, someone laugh at one of the stories. So my books, there's, I think, four different series now and they're all a little bit different, but they are all aimed at junior to middle grade, you know, sort of ages. So I guess between the ages of seven and, well, maybe six and sort of eleven would be the sweet spot for all of my series. And then the humour, the style. I'm a big fan of british comedy, so I love. I love the way they use dialogue to sort of set each other up for one liners and things like that. So there's a lot of that in my books. And if anyone listening has read either the Mister Bambucles remarkable series or the Toffel Tower series, actually, even exploding endings, there's often little sections where the whole story strips away and you're left with just two voices, two characters speaking to each other with nothing else, no tags, no description, and it's just this pure dialogue and I love that. And that's definitely inspired from british comedy. And also sometimes there's visual humour as well. That's where an illustrator will inject their own sense of humor. So I've been lucky enough to work with James Foley. From your part of the world. Yep. And he. And I remember in one of the topple towers books, I remember just leaving a blank page and saying, here's the concept. But James go to town. And he did, and he'd love that. Yeah.
Yeah. So. And. But there are so many different ways to create humor. There's, of course, puns. And, you know, when children are learning about words and language, puns become a really funny thing for them because they start to break through with their understandings and they realize, oh, that has two meanings and it's a whole new world. Of course, there's toilet humor, which is.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: Very popular in it.
[00:18:43] Speaker D: It's like the common denominator is like, snot and stuff.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: Is that toilet humor? Is that classified to that level?
[00:18:51] Speaker D: Yeah, that's right. And so I do use that sparingly sometimes in the same, like in the Rat Bag series, they might be, you know, that's that sort of humor because the younger readers will be more drawn to that. And then there's, you know, situational humor where you put your characters into really embarrassing or awkward situations and it's at the expense of the character, but the reader takes great joy, you know, seeing these characters go through such awful situations and recurring humour where you might plant a joke and then have it a few times later throughout the book as well. So there's so many different ways and I like to experiment with. And there are others as well. There's surreal humor, someone like Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, they're so good at that. With the Treehouse series, it's just, you know, off the charts strange and kids love it. And so there's all these different ways to create humor. So I really like to experiment with that and try and find a, you know, a unique voice for each book or each series, drawing on a range of those techniques.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:53] Speaker C: Are you naturally funny, though?
[00:19:55] Speaker A: Like, if so, you wrote that first story and did it just come from the heart? You just, you know, rather than try to be funny, you're just naturally funny. And then you've maybe. Have you gone out and researched these other skills of funny as well?
[00:20:08] Speaker D: An excellent question. I was a bit of a class clown at school and was. Would often give the smart Alec comment, you know, and I loved making people laugh and I did a lot of sketches during high school and university. I enjoyed sort of riding little skits and performing them at camps and things like that. And so I think. And also my parents, you know, would put a lot of comedy on during the evenings. And so I was sort of immersed in this sort of funny, silly world. So I don't know if that. I don't know if that makes me naturally funny. Certainly I still like to, you know, if I'm at a dinner party or something, I'll again, put in the odds, wise crack. But, yeah, when you mentioned going and learning these techniques there, there was a little bit of research into this. And I think it's a good lesson in that you don't have to be naturally funny to write humor. It is something that you can actually craft and practice. And my sort of. And this, I hope it applies to other people. It certainly applies to me. If I'm giggling or laughing or smiling when I'm writing a funny book, then to me, that's a really good sign that someone else might enjoy this. But of course, as I said before, it is objective and not everyone's going to, you know, find the same things funny.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: Yeah, that's it. Well, what about your new picture book that's coming out?
[00:21:21] Speaker D: Yeah, this one's. This one. It's funny because that goes right back to the idea of the dialogue, the two characters. So it's called this is my book, which is illustrated by Heidi McKinnon. And she's done just the most incredible job bringing these pages to life. And the concept is that. But, you know, imagine what the pages of a book might say to each other. You know, would they be friends? Would they be enemies? And I figure because they're just always, a book is usually closed, so they're always pressed tightly against each other. I think they'd hate each other.
[00:21:52] Speaker C: An old married couple.
[00:21:54] Speaker D: That's right. Yeah. And so the concept of the book is, well, the pages fighting over supremacy, arguing. Well, the left is more important, but the right is more important.
And it just gets into this, I guess, bit of wordplay and back and forth, and it starts to, you know, self analyse itself. A bit of meta. But all the meanwhile, Heidi MacKinnon's illustrations have their faces, you know, morphing and getting cranky. And it becomes an interactive book as well, where they're so determined to own the book that eventually they pull the author and illustrator in as well. And the left page might say, excuse me, heidi Mackinnon, can you please draw something to weigh the right page down? And so she puts a dun bill on the page and then you turn the page, and now the book is vertical and you have the left page on top. It says, well, now I'm on the top of this book. And then the right page might say, well, I'm friends with the author. Excuse me, Tim Harris, can you please scrap the left page? So, yes, scrap the left page. And then you turn the next page and the left page has all been crinkled up. And so, yeah, it's just a fun exchange between the left and the right.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: Oh, it's amazing. I love that. It's such a cool concept. And you can just tell right away that kids will go nuts for that.
[00:23:07] Speaker C: Taking the book, tearing the pages out.
[00:23:11] Speaker D: Had this awesome, I reckon it was probably the top ten readings I think I've ever done. And it was a whole bunch of year three kids, and they got so into it. It's about, I think, four classes, so over 100 kids in this room. And every time I turn the page and read the next, you know, insult or whatever, they would start cheering for the page they were going for. It was very cool that is very cool.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: I think that's absolutely awesome. The energy must be amazing to do stuff like that.
[00:23:36] Speaker D: That was one. I remember finishing that session and saying to the librarian that that was a. That was a really cool experience.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: That's amazing. And have you got more books in that series? You know, like, different genres with different pages and characters fighting or anything like that?
[00:23:49] Speaker D: There's certainly the potential to have more, but it all, unfortunately, the whole industry boils down to how many books they're selling. Yeah, true. And so if it sells well, so if you're listening, please buy. This is by Tim Harrison.
Yeah. But there's definitely. I suppose there's almost an endless universe with the pages as characters.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. You're onto something there.
Oh, that's amazing, Tim. Well, you've already shared so much, you know, expertise and things like that. But do you have any prime tips that you would want to give to authors who want to make kids laugh out loud? Not just smile, maybe give them a laugh, even a snigger?
[00:24:27] Speaker D: Yeah, definitely. I think, yeah. Having fun when you're writing it, I do believe that the energy you pour into the manuscript will end up bouncing back off the pages to the reader. And so having a lot of fun and being prepared to be entering the mind of a child and thinking about what they might like. And so that can be as simple as just being really, really silly or naming characters with ridiculous names. And there's so many ways that you can begin to. To create a tone that. That says to kids, hey, this is not a serious story. This is going to be a funny story. And it really starts on page one.
The kid's going to probably judge by the COVID of the book, this is a funny book. And then they're going to expect it from page one and two. So it's about creating that tone and just having lots of fun with it. Oh, yeah.
[00:25:17] Speaker A: That's amazing. That's really good advice there. Yeah. I think people can get so caught up in, I guess, trying to be funny, like, unnaturally and maybe just to pair it back and relax and, like you say, have fun with it, you might tap into something that's actually funny.
Well, I'm just doing a women's fiction at the moment, so not so funny and not so silly, but lots of wine drinking and picking fights and then drama in my house to draw upon.
[00:25:44] Speaker D: Oh, that's great.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: Yeah. What can we expect from Tim Harris in the future? Obviously more funny boobsen or do you have any aspirations to, you know, write.
[00:25:52] Speaker D: Something serious or, you know, you know, I do, actually. So first of all, I've pitched a few funny ideas to my publisher and they've sort of written back and said, you know, which ones they'd like me to present a little bit more for. And so there's one in particular which again, it will be a funny one, but it will be standalone probably this time post to the series that I've been writing. And so I'm really excited about writing a funny standalone book and that one, that one ventures into a sort of a certain area or a topic that I haven't at all explored, which I'm really excited about. But I actually do have a couple of ideas that are bubbling around and they won't leave me alone, Joanne. They keep sort of scratching my brain when I'm trying to sleep or when I'm doing the washing or, you know, driving or whatever. And to me, that's a good sign that these books want to be written because they, they won't leave me alone and they're not funny. And so I'm really keen to explore them. And so what can people expect in the future? Probably some more funny books, but in the meantime, there's some other ideas floating around that I'm very, very keen to work with. I do have a couple of educational readers that I've worked on that aren't funny and they'll be sort of there more of a like an educational resource type book and. Yeah, so they're not sort of available for the public as such, but they weren't funny and I really enjoyed writing them. It was actually quite nice to have a switch. In fact, I found that after I finished writing those two books that then looking at the next funny project seemed even funnier.
Two serious ones that went before, well.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: I was going to say like the non, the ones that you're deeming non funny, do you think that they might still come out funny because it's just so ingrained in you?
[00:27:33] Speaker D: Yeah. Do you know, there were a couple of times in those books where I thought, thought he's a good chance to have a joke, and then looking back over the rest of the text, I thought, no, that's going to come out of the blue and that's going to completely spoil, you know, the setup for where I'm at to, in the story. Yeah, but it really is interesting and it, I guess with humor in more serious looks. I mean, look at Harry Potter. There are some very funny moments and I think JK Rowling did such a great job with Ron Weasley in particular because he often acted as the comic relief and. But it was cleverly done because you have these incredibly, you know, magical and sometimes tense and scary books and, you know, really lots of cool subplots and amazing main plot with a bit of humor sprinkled in throughout it. So there is always room for the humor. But as per reflecting with the educational reader that I was writing, that just, it just wasn't, wasn't the time.
Probably wasn't quite the word count to play with as well.
[00:28:32] Speaker C: Yeah, fair enough.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: Oh, no. Well, that's fantastic, Tim, and thank you so much. You've shared some absolute gold with our audience there. Can you tell them where they can, you know, find your books? As you said, go buy your books on and offline, certainly.
[00:28:46] Speaker D: Yeah. So to find out more about me or my books, you can head to timharrisbooks.com. and that's sort of a bit of a hub for links for where you can buy the books. A lot of my books are also audiobooks, and so if anyone prefers audio books, you can get hold of them that way. And if anyone is an aspiring writer listening to the show and would like to learn more about writing humor, I have a course with the australian writers center called laugh out loud writing funny stories for kids and that sort of dives into a whole, whole world of. Yeah. Of tips and tricks and things like that.
[00:29:20] Speaker A: Amazing with the audiobooks. Are you narrating them yourself or did they find someone else?
[00:29:24] Speaker D: I did one and it was so much fun and I lost my voice after it. And I said, now it's the time to record a Jimmy Barnes album.
So bambucle is narrated by Chris Dyer, who is an english voice actor, and Toffel Towers is narrated by Rupert Dagas, who's an australian actor and voice actor. And they did really, really great job and I'm glad I didn't do them because they're much better than me.
[00:29:48] Speaker A: At least you've done one, though, and you give it a shotgun. Ya. Fantastic. And that's great. About the course, Tim, love the Australian Writers Centre. They always do such good stuff. So that's amazing. Is that ongoing or is there a deadline for that?
[00:30:00] Speaker D: That is ongoing. And so, yeah, it's really cool. And I really enjoy reading. The studio who do the course have the option of submitting a piece of writing, and I give them some video feedback about the text. I really enjoy that, hearing all the different fresh voices that come across come across the desk. And I forgot to mention one thing as well. Actually, I'm about to launch a podcast called Fact and Fiction weird stories with Tim Harris, where half of the episode is looking at a fact about a theme such as snot or astronauts or movie theaters. And then the second half is a story that I written that matches the theme.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: Amazing. That's fantastic. Yeah, I'll get my kids on to that.
[00:30:42] Speaker D: Nice one.
[00:30:44] Speaker C: I was like, ooh.
[00:30:44] Speaker A: And then you said snot. I was like, ooh.
[00:30:47] Speaker D: That's what I was.
[00:30:48] Speaker A: Not for me.
Yeah. Oh, that is incredible. Tim, huge congrats on all your success, and we look forward to everything you're doing in the future.
[00:30:56] Speaker D: Thank you so much. And thank you for having me on the show.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: So there you have it, folks.
[00:31:06] Speaker C: The truly comical and awesome Tim Harris. Tim's books for kids are hilarious. And no doubt if you haven't already, go and check them out now. Next time on the hybrid Author podcast, we have multi award winning author John Larkin on chasing the writing dream. I wish you well on your author adventure this next week. That's it from me. Bye for now.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: That's the end for now, authors. I hope you're further forward in your author adventure venture after listening, and I hope you'll listen next time. Remember to head on over to the hybrid author website at www.hybridauthor.com dot au to get your free author pass.
[00:31:39] Speaker C: It's bye for now.
