Baby Barista: A Coffee Primer for the Youngest Fans // Written by Huntsville Wedding Photographers Who Just Love The Science, Art, and Community Behind Craft Coffee

This blog post is very different from our typical wedding inspiration or planning tips, but we’re incredibly excited to announce the launch of our new children’s book!

Baby Barista: A Coffee Primer For The Youngest Fans just launched itself into the world earlier this month. This evening we’re celebrating with launch party at Elitaire Boutique here in Huntsville, so I thought it would be the perfect time to share more about the story behind our book!

Joel & Amber Like Coffee

If you’ve been following us for awhile, you know that coffee has been part of our brand from the beginning. With the pandemic and a toddler hitting us about the same time, our #jacoffeeadventures (find that on Instagram!) have been fewer and further between. But back when we traveled so much, we stopped at hundreds of coffee shops in the US, Canada, Europe, and Scandinavia. We’re always searching for a shop and a brew that will impress us.

 It’s all about the experience. To have a perfectly crafted latte in an atmosphere that just fits, it takes a lot of thought and precision. It takes attention to detail and the determination to perfect a craft. Coffee is art + science, just like photography. No detail is too small. From the beans and roasting to the grind and milk steaming technique, careful attention is needed every step of the way.

(That’s the way we want to run our business. We want the experience our couples have to reflect attention to every little detail. Thoughtful through and through!)

To read more about why coffee is a much deeper part of our brand than the caffeine, check out Our Brand: Faith, Coffee, Travel, and Marriage.

Our personal coffee journey started with a $100 espresso machine and pre-ground coffee. A full in-house coffee shop and an appreciation for medium roast coffee later, we found our way to a children’s book about craft coffee.

How Baby Barista All Started

Josiah loves to watch us make our weekend lattes and sip on his own little “mocha”. (Spoiler alert: it’s glorified hot chocolate.) We gave him a super cute little espresso machine for his birthday so he could make his own coffee for us. As we played with it, I was trying to give him some knowledge of what a mocha was or how to make a cortado. Kids are incredibly smart and are just waiting to learn fun things like that! We love books as much as we love coffee, so I started looking for a little primer or some sort of kid’s book to help.

I searched and searched. (If it’s out there, I still haven’t found it!) So I looked at Joel and said, “We could write that.” We know nothing about publishing a book. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from being entrepreneurs, it’s that you can do almost anything if you just find the next step and keep going. I don’t remember exactly what Joel’s response was, but obviously, he got on board!

One Step At A Time

We started the process sometime in February, I think. There was a decent amount of research we did to figure out options for publishing, book criteria, and what the market is for board books in particular. We also discovered that board books are more complicated to publish than a normal paperback book. But we had our vision, and board book it was!

I found some great resources to sort through the details (shout out to Reedsy and Michelle Nelson-Schmidt ), sketched out the book from start to finish, and applauded Joel for finalizing a publisher. We also learned a lot about the illustration process (spoiler: I can’t draw beyond pencil sketches), which I felt was one of the more complicated parts of publishing for us. A few rounds of revisions later with our illustrator, we were off to printing!

So step by step we went. Our shipment of books arrived in September, and wow! What an exciting moment that was! Months of chipping away at this project were sitting in boxes in our living room. Then came the harder part – getting our little book out into the world! I know and love marketing, so working with a product instead of a service has been a great learning experience for me. We market our photography almost exclusively to Huntsville, and now we had a product to market anywhere the world! That’s exciting!

Elitaire Boutique gets a shout-out for being our very first retail partner, cheerleader, and sweet friend. We’re so honored to have our launch celebration event at their shop in downtown Huntsville! Kayla and her team just opened Elitaire Petite, which is THE CUTEST classy baby boutique ever. Kayla has an impeccable sense of style and a strong modern brand. I wasn’t surprised at all to cheer her on as she absolutely nailed the perfect modern baby boutique.

The Impact You Can Make

As with everything we do in all our businesses, we want to use it to give back to the community in some way. For every copy sold, we’ll be donating a percentage of the proceeds to trusted nonprofits that support foster kids and work to fight homelessness. We chose foster ministries because we have a huge heart for that mission. We’ve seen firsthand the selfless work foster families do to provide a home and support for kids with nowhere else to go. Working with local foster homes during our photography community drives has been so eye-opening for me. There are people out there giving so much of themselves to be a safe place for these foster kids, and they need the community to help make it all happen!

Our other focus is the homeless community because there is such a great need both locally in Huntsville and other parts of the country. It’s complex and intricate, but there are some amazing nonprofits out there to be a resource for them.

We’ve also been able to use our books to support fundraising efforts for great organizations, such as North Alabama Pregnancy Resource Center and American Heritage Girls. There is so much opportunity to give back, and every book you purchase makes it happen!

Amazing! I Want A Copy!!

Yes! We want you to have a copy, too! You can order as many copies as you’d like at babybaristabook.com!

Do You Wholesale?

Yes, we do! If you’re a coffee shop, baby boutique, library, or nonprofit, we have wholesale discounts available for you. Just head to the Wholesale tab on our Baby Barista website or email us directly at babybaristabook@gmail.com. Our books are currently being sold in boutiques across the country, from Hawaii to Cape Cod!

What’s Next?

I have a sequel and a whole Baby Barista product line planned, but Joel says we need to get our book underway first. He’s right, of course, but stay tuned! 2022 is a new year with new possibilities.

Here’s to a lifetime of learning and the adventure that happens along the way!

*hugs*

Amber