MINNEAPOLIS, MN / ACCESSWIRE / January 25, 2021 / It's a brisk Minnesota morning on the outskirts of the Twin Cities where suburban neighborhoods start to turn into farms.
Tristan Pollock and his partner Danyelle are taking their daily lap around the cul-de-sac in Jordan, Minnesota, near where their families live. They grew up just a stone's throw from here. The sun is warm, but it's cooling down and getting close to sunset. The trees are turning the fall colors of orange, yellow, and red. Brisk cool air from the river valleys and Northwoods combines into a skin prickling exercise. This is home. This is where Tristan grew up, where his family lives, where he met his partner of 14 years, and where he is stuck during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It's also where he came up with and created the concept for Stay at Home, Dog!, a children's book made to help families and their kids cope during COVID and 2020, a year that will go down in history as once in a lifetime. Happily married co-authors Tristan and Danyelle Pollock don't have kids - COVID stopped that plan, too - but Tristan's parents, Julie and Rick Pollock, had three: Tristan, his brother Brice, and sister Jillian. Tristan's mom, Julie, is also an elementary school special education paraprofessional who just so happens to be an illustrator who was top of her class at the most prestigious art school in Minnesota: Minneapolis College of Art and Design, or MCAD as most locals like to call it.
Tristan's dad, Rick, is an entrepreneur and graphic designer who helped educate the Twin Cities business community about 'The Internet' back in 1993 as well as start multiple design companies. Put the whole Pollock family together at home during a pandemic-scale lockdown and it created just the right amount of creative inspiration. Tristan first brought up the idea of creating a kids' book after his Mom was showing some of her old sketches as well as a few new drawings she was doing to support her fellow elementary school teachers and paraprofessionals.
Tristan was inspired by his Mom's incredible artistry with illustration and outlined a rhyme-based kids book. The illustrations were rough, but he was no stranger to writing lyrical lines via poems and musical outlets. An hour later, Tristan had a first draft that he ran by Danyelle's parents Deb and Mike Ludwig, as well as Danyelle's brother Dustyn. The first draft was complete. Tristan then took the idea to his Mom. She instantly loved the project and started sketching in her spare time. As a dog-loving family, the character named Mabel in honor of their grandmother who passed in 2020 eventually turned into a dog who helped kids understand COVID-19 and pandemic-like situations.
Stay at Home, Dog! was the name. Danyelle edited Tristan's freestyle rhymes into a smooth, flowing text. Mom put the finishing touches on the illustrations. Dad added color and formatted the book to fit Amazon's self-publishing service Kindle Direct Publishing. And just like that, the book was complete. In just 3 weeks from concept to being published, Tristan Pollock and his family created their first children's book. The book needed to help families, so Tristan and his family decided to donate the proceeds of the book to families affected by a coronavirus. To date, all of the profits of the book have gone to Second Harvest Heartland to feed families struggling with job loss and income deficits during COVID.
Little did the family know, Stay at Home, Dog! would become an overnight hit. Four hundred and fifty books were ordered and over 2,500 pages read in just a few days on Amazon. Stay at Home, Dog! hit #2 on the Amazon Top Seller charts for Baby & Toddler Nursery Rhyme books. Now over 1,100 copies have been ordered since March 2020 and have received feedback from families and kids around the world. Stay at Home, Dog! has even been translated into Spanish - ¡Quédateen casa, Perro! - by Maya Errazuriz and Felipe Rodriguez, Tristan's Chilean friends who took a liking to the project and had recently hosted Tristan and Danyelle in Santiago on their sabbatimoon around the world.
And the momentum hasn't slowed down. There's been a surge of teachers and parents reading the book online to their virtual students, Tristan recorded an audiobook, Tristan's mom Julie has done a reading herself on YouTube, and Dusty, Tristan's brother in love, continues to drop off books in the Little Free Libraries around his neighborhood in Prior Lake, Minnesota. But how did a young, childless 30-something create a kids book in just a few weeks with his family?
Tristan's creative entrepreneurial tendencies go way back to his upbringing in the woods in Minnesota. Tristan's parents were artists. They taught little Tristan the value of nature and artistic expression. Word on the street is you've never seen a kid's birthday until you've seen the custom cakes and themes that Mama Pollock designed.
As Tristan grew older, he began to discover that curiosity was his best friend. He explored the woods, the city, the internet, and soon was off to college at North Dakota State University in Fargo. After college, he wrote the most-read email of all time at BestBuy.com, gave a TEDx talk on creative cities, started and sold 2 tech companies, and became a millennial VC.
So next time you are asked what your 10-year plan is, tell them only time can tell. Or that you plan to write a kids' book.
Contact Information
Tristan Pollock
Shisharka Skunk Works
+1 952-913-7436
tap.pollock@gmail.com
https://www.tristanpollock101.com/
https://twitter.com/pollock
https://www.instagram.com/streetrist/
SOURCE: Shisharka Skunk Works
View source version on accesswire.com:
https://www.accesswire.com/625814/From-Tech-to-Type-How-COVID-Turned-Silicon-Valley-Entrepreneur-Tristan-Pollock-Into-a-Best-Selling-Childrens-Book-Author
