Note from Janna:
Jon and Desi are a husband-and-wife team based in Southern California, and both former teachers — Desi taught high school English, Jon taught middle school art. Desi is a writer, copywriter, and voice actor; Jon is a writer-illustrator who runs the popular YouTube channel Mr. St. Amant, where he teaches figure drawing and digital art. They’re also former hobbyist beekeepers and that real beekeeping experience is woven into their upcoming middle grade graphic novel, Three Bee Honey.
In this conversation, we discuss about the slow, patient work of building a book and a readership.
Click below to view our full conversation on YouTube, or read the (edited) transcript below.
Janna: So let’s start at the beginning — what is the book about?
Desi: Three Bee Honey is a middle grade graphic novel series about a young, lonely worker bee who has to choose between her new friends and her new passion and saving her hive from imminent collapse. It basically reflects on our beekeeping experience and our teaching experience, so there’s a lot of those elements — bee science, friendship, and just being an adolescent in a world that expects a lot of you.
The book features anthropomorphized animals — characters who are sort of kids and sort of bees at the same time. I loved that from the very beginning. When I was 9 or 10 years old, I would have loved a book like this. But you got some pushback from publishers about it. Can you talk about that?
Desi: The design of the characters has definitely evolved over time. We first approached it in a more realistic way — let’s make them look like real people — and we realized over time, from publishers’ feedback, that making them a little more cartoonish made it more visually engaging for a younger audience. There was a disconnect between the story and the design of the characters.
Jon: The whole purpose of making them anthropomorphized is that it makes them more relatable. I’ve seen some really great bee graphic novels — Clan Apis is one of my favorites, where the bees are drawn scientifically accurate. Insects are very alien-looking, very fascinating, and I love entomology and different insect species. But we wanted the characters to show expression, like worry, fear, happiness, nervousness. So we felt that having more of a cartoony, human kind of feel, like Maya the Bee, but in a bee world — merging those two cultures together — was the best way to go.
Desi: We were very intentional with the design. Bees actually collect pollen and put it in little pouches, almost like satchels on their legs, so we designed the characters to have an actual little satchel — almost like a fanny pack — on their legs. And instead of the big buggy bee eyes, we gave them goggles, so they could actually see food sources the way bees would. We wanted our readers to see themselves in the bees, and the best way to do that is to make them more human-like than not.
That’s so fascinating. Are you going to include back matter in the book that goes into those details?
Desi: Yeah, our editor has mentioned having some back matter [in the second volume]. The first book has a “how to draw the characters” section.
Jon: I would love for book two to include an overview of the design — every bit of the character’s design, even down to their cowls, the little gray fluffy thing. The cowl represents the thorax of a bee, which has light gray hairs. I’d love to do a labeling page showing how the connections with an actual bee were designed.
I’m already envisioning your school visits and how fascinating this is going to be for the kids.
Desi: On our School Visits page, where we pitch to libraries and schools, we offer a range of activities and lessons depending on the students’ age level. One of them is insect character design. We take our learning from Three Bee Honey, how we designed these characters based on actual bugs, and teach the students to do the same. We did this at an elementary school about a year ago and it went really well. We went over what the bugs actually look like, the parts of the bugs, and how different bugs can reflect different personalities. The students, who were first graders, gravitated toward the bugs that reflected their own personalities, and we taught them how to design a bug character from there.
Jon: I also recently did a talk at Cal State Fullerton with the same content, but I made it more of a contest where students in an advanced illustration class had to design themselves as an insect. I wasn’t expecting them to be excited about it, but within 20 minutes they had amazing designs, some of them full-color turnarounds. The professor made me choose one winner, which was really difficult. So it’s an all-ages thing.
Wow. How often can you have a workshop that works as well for first graders as it does for college students?
Jon: That was a real surprise to us. I was going in thinking the college kids might roll their eyes, but they were really invested! It was fun.
Did we mention yet that you guys are actually beekeepers?
Desi: Currently our beehive is closed for business — the bees actually absconded a couple years ago. They grew too big for the hive space we gave them. We tried to start another colony, but we found out our youngest son is seriously allergic to bee stings, so he was scared at the prospect of having bees around.
We were hobbyist beekeepers for four or five years, and that’s where we learned a lot of the bee science and became amazed at their structure. Bees are basically a super-organism. I’d go to parties and just nerd out about bees, and Desi would be like, “Jon, stop.” But it was really great.
We harvested over a hundred pounds of honey. We wore the suit, used the smoker — it was a whole thing, and the kids were involved too. It taught us a great appreciation for bees, and that was definitely what inspired this story. Bee populations were dying at the time and they’re still in danger, and with renewed concerns about the environment, data centers and so on, those concerns really never went away.
The book feels even more relevant now than ten years ago when I first wrote it.
Do you remember the moment you actually thought of the idea for this book?
Jon: It happened over time. The Three Bee celebrity sisters — the little pop band — started off as background characters. They were the celebrities in my first graphic novel attempt, about a little snail who tries to start a band at a school of insects. We pitched that, tried to get it published, and it didn’t work out. But Desi was looking through it and said she really liked those bee characters and asked if she could make something out of them.
Desi: I just wrote a chapter, and it was actually prose. I didn’t think it was going to be a graphic novel at the time. I started the story with Claire, who was always the catalyst, and then she meets her two best friends who join forces with her. I showed it to Jon and asked what he thought, and he said it had potential and to keep going. Over the course of about eight or nine months I finished a first draft, and it became this epic adventure that kept expanding. I rewrote it completely a few times to get the voice just right.
Then over time I realized it would make a great graphic novel instead of a prose book — that was feedback I got from people looking at it — so I totally rewrote the whole manuscript as a graphic novel script.
Jon: Janna, I think you were one of the people who told us, when we first had it as an illustrated novel, that it had so much potential as a graphic novel. At first I thought I’d just be doing little spot illustrations.
I don’t want to get too far into the weeds on graphic novel scriptwriting, but what was the hardest part of going from prose to script?
Jon: We still see elements of the prose in the script. In prose, you can describe three or four actions in a single sentence — a character can go through different emotions or actions. But in graphic novel form, a character can’t do more than one thing per panel. So a script that’s only five panels can sometimes grow to nine or ten when I have to break down all those actions. That’s the only struggle, getting over that.
Desi: Really making sure the action is very clear and simple, that’s what important. We have another project we’re tinkering with — a graphic novel idea for an even younger audience — and I’ll approach that differently. I won’t write it as prose and try to adapt it; I’ll write it as a graphic novel script from the start, and really make sure it’s clear and simplified in terms of art notes.
Yeah, we don’t have to get too much in the weeds on s graphic novel script writing, but it’s making me think about a chat I had with another creator recently about their script. They were worried because the way they wrote their script was not screenwriting style or the “Dark Horse script style.” It was in the middle between prose and and a script, but they themselves were the artist. So I think they were writing it in the way that was easiest for them to put into pages.
I was saying to them, there is no right or wrong! The way you’re doing it is absolutely fine. As long as number one, it works for you, and number two, it’s legible by somebody else, by an editor who’s working with you, you’re good.
Jon: The next time, we want to write it so loosely that it’s more describing the mood and the general activities of the page, and then just see what I do with it — instead of it being as prescriptive as it is now. Because I do find myself going, “I’ll walk in, I’ll go, “Desiree, this doesn’t work, we have too many words or too many panels.” It’s kind of a fun back and forth.
I have a friend who writes for herself with just a sentence or two per page and then she composes the page however is appropriate.
Let’s talk about the journey to publication. I know it well since I was your agent, but describe it from your perspective.
Jon: We started off through KCU’s Hot Seat — a program [from a while ago] where you put your work up and members gave critical feedback. As the creator, you made a video talking about the kind of feedback you’re looking for. We were nervous about it, but we submitted the project and it caught your attention. You reached out and said you’d like to develop it further, and thus began the epic journey of getting this thing out into the world.
We got the pitch package ready, and there were maybe two years of submission — pausing in between, taking breaks, working on other projects instead of waiting on pins and needles. We didn’t get much response those first couple of years. But you, to your credit, swore this was going to be published. You championed it and reinvigorated our interest, because there was a time when we thought, “let’s just move on.”
But you insisted, “No, this needs to be out there. People are going to love this.”
And then you did something that surprised me — you suggested we crowdfund. The agent typically gets 15% of a traditional book deal, and there was nothing in a crowdfund for you. You knew that, but you were playing the long game.
I love telling people this story, because it worked. Crowdfunding is a testing ground for stories, and publishers aren’t always the most imaginative bunch — until they see the thing in their hands, it’s hard for them to take a risk. We made almost 200% of our goal; we did really well.
So having that physical 65-page crowdfunded edition, you then took it to a convention.
Yeah — it was New York Comic Con. I was meeting with some people from Papercutz, which is part of Mad Cave, and we were talking about different projects I had with clients. I brought your book out and said, “These people are amazing.” And I guess I persuaded them.
Jon: You did. The physical thing helps. The confidence and the belief in the project, plus an actual thing to show somebody — “look, this is what it could be, imagine this expanded” — was probably a much easier sell than a digital file and a script. Your enthusiasm plus the physical item was probably what really pushed them over.
Beyond the physical comic, I’d say it’s the hustle that a crowdfunding campaign demonstrates. Did the campaign help you build a mailing list or develop a readership?
Desi: We started the newsletter before the crowdfunding, and that was really important. Originally Jon and I had two separate newsletters, but that became difficult to maintain and we were saying the same things, so we joined forces under the brand St. Amant Stories. Our initial newsletter started about two years before the crowdfunding campaign. It was never huge, but it had over a hundred subscribers by then — gradual growth between the two of us. We post once a month, because that’s all we can manage, but we’ve been consistent and haven’t missed a month yet, knock on wood.
Jon: A lot of in-person events help, too. We have a little clipboard with sign-ups that we mention as we talk to people. What’s nice is that they don’t have to buy anything — signing up still feels like a step up from grabbing a business card and losing it. They become part of the community, and if they’re not into it later, they can opt out.
The best growth of our mailing list comes from in-person events, where we’ve connected with someone over a funny story or something. We’ve been doing a lot of hyper-local in-person events the last couple years, like farmers markets, libraries, art walks, and WonderCon. Though we’re interested in going out of state and even global.
To be fully transparent, these conventions are often not financially profitable. There’s parking, table costs, all of it. Some creators swear off them entirely.
But what I consider a win is connecting with people. If we go to an event for eight hours and come home with interesting stories, that’s a win. We met a veteran-turned-archaeologist who told us about fascinating digs and then gave us a personal rendition of the Space Force anthem. That, to me, is more of a win than coming away profitable. In the long run we’re building community, and that’s what art is about.
Desi: The biggest highlight for me was at WonderCon, when a little girl who’d read our book the previous year came back in cosplay as Hannah, one of the bees, and brought fan art. I got chills. I was like, this was worth the whole thing. I don’t even care if we didn’t sell a bunch of stickers. Honestly, this was peak for me, I’m good now.
Newsletter lists tend to grow slowly, and people sometimes wonder if it’s even worth it. But to me, a small, highly engaged connection is much more valuable than a big following that’s just clicking “like.”
Desi: I agree.
Jon: I’d rather have a cult following of serious fans who love the work and connect on a deeper level than a mass following of casual people. We just love making meaningful connections — that’s what it’s really about.
You were both teachers. Do you have a specific plan for outreach to educators?
Jon: A couple of things. I found that college visit really fun, so we’re reaching out to deans of local arts schools. I also recently got a part-time job as an elementary art teacher, going from class to class — one day a week, five classes — and at the end I was able to pass out little flyers about our book to first and second graders. We plan to do school visits after the book is out, so we have a physical thing to show.
I’m also starting one-on-one coaching. I really love doing the workshops.
Desi: I’ve created an Excel spreadsheet with a bunch of names, and I’ve been reaching out to podcast hosts and librarians. I literally sent an email this morning to another librarian. I’m chipping away every day and keeping track of responses and follow-ups. Even though the book doesn’t come out till October, this stuff is planned months in advance.
We also prepared something like a one-pager. When we pitch to libraries and schools, we want them to know we’ve put a lot of thought into it — that they’re not bringing in amateurs. We have various activities to choose from and can work with age groups from kindergarten through college. We bring 36 years of combined classroom teaching experience, strong class management skills, the ability to develop lessons that support ELA and visual art objectives, and great enthusiastic energy.
For podcasts, we send a media kit — who we are, what we’ve done, and why we might be interesting to talk to.
For people you’re not already connected with — maybe beyond your local area — are you doing cold outreach, looking up directors of curriculum and so on?
Desi: Absolutely. We’re starting with people we know, but I’ve already started cold-pitching librarians and deans. The hard part, honestly, is finding contact information.
Really? Aren’t emails usually available on school websites?
School websites are easy enough, but librarians at public libraries — their emails are really difficult to find. That part has taken some time, just researching the best way to reach them and not get lost in the void.
I was listening to a podcast recently — a finance book, I think — where the author sent cold outreach emails to faculty in finance departments at universities all over the country, and it had a really significant positive return. His book was actually adopted into the curriculum for some classes.
Jon: Wow, that’s amazing.
Desi: There’s still so much work to do. It’s like a huge mountain. But it’s so important to traverse it. You just have to do it.
To me, the key is figuring out who are the people who are most likely to be particularly interested in your book? And how do you find them?
Desi: Right. We’re still pitching ourselves and trying to get make contact with people. So it’s a work in progress right now, but we’re definitely starting on that. We’ve begun that work.
Jon: It’s also about finding a good angle. Our book has entomology, bee science, friendship themes, and pop-star-adjacent themes — those can all be little hooks. I’d love to do a bug show, an entomology expo, just to nerd out about bees with people who are curious.
We’re trying to stay open-minded.
Since you’re a husband-and-wife team, have you discussed a divide-and-conquer approach? Would you ever go out separately for school visits?
Jon: Yes. The college visit was just me. The elementary school was both of us — I focused on drawing while Desi was the host, the MC.
Desi: I feel like Jon is essential because of the art part. I can’t draw, and many of our workshops involve draw-alongs.
Jon: But Desi’s creative writing, education, voice acting, and copywriting experience would be great on a panel. So we’re open to that.
Honestly, what I’m most excited about — bucket-list stuff — is taking the whole family on trips around the world for the sake of the art. An excuse to go to Europe or South America. A traveling family show, like the Partridge Family but with graphic novels. That’s the real dream.
There are people who do that. It is possible!
Let’s talk about your YouTube channel, Jon. How long have you been doing it, and how has it evolved? It’s doing really well right now.
Jon: I started the channel in 2011. It was just a place to put my drawing demos for students who found certain things challenging — extra study they could access after school. I used to post maybe two or three videos a year. But over time my students started requesting things and I got more into it. Then, when I took a leave of absence this past year, I really thought: I love teaching, I love helping people get better, I love building community. YouTube was a no-brainer.
The audience I have is very supportive and appreciative, and I respond to every comment. I know that won’t be sustainable forever, but I do it as long as I can.
Every Saturday morning I do “Saturday Morning Cartooning.” I pick a different theme each week — I did three weeks of fantasy, where I drew myself as Conan, and right now I’m doing sci-fi, picking favorite characters and drawing them in my style for about 30 minutes. People comment live asking how I did something, and I can respond in real time. Then I post the video afterward.
I also do a series called “Draw This,” which are base poses. I focus on a lot of the requests people make, like a set of pirate poses or skateboard poses. Those are doing really well.
That led to a lot of people asking if I do courses. At first I was resistant, but Desi helped me build a course that goes as in-depth as students want.
I do a free 15-minute consultation to see what fits, then they can choose one hour, three sessions, or the full six-meeting course. The goal of the six-session course is to create an entire character Bible — turnarounds, environmental details, personality, emotion poses, facial expressions. That’s where the YouTube channel has led me.
I love the free 15-minute consultation — you’re going to learn so much about what people need. It reminds me of how I work: I’ll just try something, do it, and even when it doesn’t go as expected and all kinds of drama happens. But I learn so much.
Jon: Happy accidents sometimes happen.
Like you said about traveling internationally, the world is so global now. Geopolitics right now is horrible and everybody’s putting up walls, but when you talk about culture, I feel like the cultural world is coming together. We’re all into similar things and love connecting with each other. So that’s really cool.
Jon: Yeah, it’s fighting back against this isolationism and and disconnect. I think again, connecting with people around the world is so great. I get so excited about meeting someone new with a fascinating story or perspective or cultural practice. That’s the dream, just to meet as many people as I can, hear different perspectives and learn from them, you know.
So the coaching is equal parts me learning about somebody, and also figuring out how I can help them contribute to the world in their own way. I get so excited meeting someone new with a fascinating story or perspective. That’s the dream — to meet as many people as I can and learn from them. It’s fighting back against isolationism and disconnect.
Maybe this is a good time to ask about the course I taught for the first time last fall — How to Launch Your Graphic Novel. You both took it. What were some of your takeaways?
Jon: We just had a meeting yesterday with our small group from that course, actually. You put us into study groups to discuss the homework, and our group has been meeting once a month ever since — credit to Michelle, who keeps us organized. Last night our whole topic was marketing.
The community you emphasized, building those connections with each other, has been huge. We’re all learning from each other. We were even listening to a talk you put out this week about self-belief and how you need that in order to market your book, and we were like, we really needed this.
Having the structure from A to B was so valuable. Going from “what’s my first step?” to actionable steps with assignments for each week. I went in thinking we’d already done a lot of it, and I was surprised how much more I gained from it.
I loved the D&D theme too.
Yes, the D&D theme! That’s Jade Vaughan.
Jon: That was fun.
Learning the why behind each step, then the action, then meeting with a group to hold each other accountable and bounce ideas off — really helpful.
Desi: We learned so much, and we were already in the process of publishing a graphic novel. I can only imagine how much stronger we’d be if we’d taken the class earlier. It’s like building a house — you want the framing strong, the foundation good. I realized there were patches that needed repairing, things I’d forgotten or needed to add to our website.
Whereas, if you take it at the beginning, you build that foundation strong from the start instead of going roundabout.
I’m still working on stuff. Our website isn’t where I want it to be. It’s fine, but I see a lot of changes I want to make. Now that you gave us a toolset, I’m thinking, how am I going to make that happen.
I don’t have the budget for a web designer right now, but I’m determined to learn and find a platform with the design tools to make it look more professional and polished.
Marketing is always in progress — I’m in exactly the same boat with Kids Comics Unite and my agency. But can I show your website and discuss a few areas you might change? (I cleared this with you before we started recording.)
One thing I noticed is that you have to scroll on your homepage to get to your upcoming book. Your debut book is probably your most important thing, so you want it “above the fold.”
Another thing: you use artwork a lot on your website. When you upload an image file in Weebly, are you adding the text that’s in the image as alt text, so it’s machine-readable?
Desi: No — and I need to figure out how to do that.
That’s a big one, because search engines and AI can’t read text inside an image. People are increasingly using AI for search, so you want all the text you want found to be available to search.
When I went to your Visits and Workshops page, I’d also suggest reducing the number of activities you offer. When you give people too many choices, they get decision fatigue and end up not choosing anything.
I still struggle with this; I love to teach and give people all the options. But sometimes fewer options is better. Any time I’m promoting something, I ask myself: how can I make the decision easier for people? Often that means taking things away and making it more clear.
Jon: I want to use the example of In-N-Out — a very simple menu, but a vast secret menu. If you know how to ask, they’ll customize. So maybe the goal is: keep it simple, but offer customization.
Exactly. That was a lesson I learned years ago working with my husband, who’s a photographer. His website said “I do weddings, portraits, corporate events, bar mitzvahs — everything.”
A business coach told him to pick one lane he really loves and make his website amazing for that, and guaranteed he’d still get inquiries for everything else. As long as you clearly convey that you’re super strong in one area, you’ll still get inquiries about other things.
Jon: That’s a great point. There’s a psychological term for it — decision overwhelm, decision fatigue. Nothing looks appealing when you have too many options.
One more website question: what’s the single most important thing you want people to do when they land on your site?
Jon: Currently I’d say it’s to pre-order our book — so putting that on top. A close second would be to sign up for the newsletter.
I might actually flip those. I’d suggest making the newsletter signup the top priority, because people are more likely to pre-order once they’ve gotten to know you and really like you.
Getting their email address is the first rung of the ladder. However you revise the site, make that the most obvious action. It’s the reason pop-up windows are so popular — they’re annoying, but they work.
Jon: We need to implement that for sure. I’m writing it down. Thank you for the feedback, Janna.
Let’s wrap up — tell people how they can connect with you. And, of course, sign up for your Substack.
Desi: Our website, saintamantstories.com, is where a lot of the stuff happens. You can find us on Substack, TikTok, and Instagram at St.AmantStories (all smooshed together).
Jon: I’ll interject here: Desi runs the TikTok and Instagram, and objectively — even as someone she puts in a lot of the videos, where I’m usually rolling my eyes — her TikTok is solid and underrated. The posts are really funny. It’s worth checking out.
Desi: As a copywriter for an agency, I did a lot of organic social content — wrote scripts, filmed, directed, edited. It’s tricky to share the creator experience for a book that isn’t out yet, so for a long time we focused on the creative process, the lifestyle, writing and revising, but in a funny, meme-ish way.
Every time, I tell Jon, “trust me on this,” and he’s game now because he’s seen the results.
Jon: And lastly, Mr. St. Amant on YouTube is where a lot of the learning happens. Every Saturday morning at 9 a.m. PST I do Saturday Morning Cartooning. Those are the places we’re most active.
I personally believe that if people follow you now, they’re getting in at the very beginning of a really long, brilliant, amazing trajectory. You have so many cool things ahead of you — I’m very sure of that.
Jon: We appreciate that so much. And we loved talking with you today. This was a lot of fun.
Pre-order THREE BEE HONEY: Coming October 2026 from Papercutz (Mad Cave)
St. Amant Stories website: saintamantstories.com
Newsletter / Substack: St. Amant Stories
TikTok & Instagram: @saintamantstories
Jon’s YouTube channel: Mr. St. Amant (check out Saturday Morning Cartooning, every Saturday at 9 a.m. PST)
If you’re interested in going a bit deeper into some of the marketing principles I discussed with Jon and Desi, I’m teaching a free masterclass on how to build an audience for your work on June 20th.
Click here to RSVP for the masterclass.
