Meet the Author | Christine Rollings on the making of My Barista ABCs
Continuing the conversation to get to know Christine Rollings. Today, she shares with me how she put together My Barista ABCs as the author and first-time self-publisher.
As an author myself, and the person behind Contributor, a lot of people have approached me to ask how they can get their own coffee books published. While I had the rare opportunity to work with an indie publisher based in Indonesia for my book, many coffee authors prefer to go with self-publishing.
That’s partly why Contributor as a business concept works! While self-publishing allows authors to hold on to all creative control over their books, it can limit sales distribution. Many of these niche coffee books are sold directly by the authors themselves, or through a handful of distribution points on their personal network, and not via major bookstore chains or e-commerce platforms.
Contributor serves as a hub for all of these hard-to-find coffee books, and as a platform to elevate and support coffee authors who are doing everything themselves, like Christine is.
Buy My Barista ABCs
Tigger: What inspired you to write My Barista ABCs?
Christine: It really started in a very ordinary, everyday moment—reading to my kids.
When my oldest was little, I found myself constantly editing books as I read them out loud: shortening sentences, simplifying phrases, and making the language flow a little more naturally. At some point I had the thought, “If I’m already rewriting these as I go… what would it look like to write one myself?”
Around that same time, a family friend casually suggested the idea of doing an ABC book about coffee, and I immediately latched onto it. It felt like such a natural fit—simple, playful, and a really accessible way to introduce kids to something that’s such a big part of our world.
Coffee has always been present in our lives, especially through my husband’s work and involvement in competitions. I’ve had the chance to be around events like the World Coffee Championships, even volunteering when I was pregnant, and seeing firsthand how coffee brings together people from all over the world—different cultures, different languages, all connected through this shared craft.
At the same time, I realized that our kids weren’t really part of that world. And as more of our peers in coffee started having families, it felt like there was this growing gap—this whole rich, global community that didn’t yet have a clear way to include children.
This book became a way to bridge that gap.
It’s not really about getting kids into coffee in a literal sense—it’s about letting them feel included in something their parents care about. It’s about connection, curiosity, and creating a shared language between generations.
We let our kids have little sips of coffee when they’re curious, but more than anything, it’s about inviting them into the experience - letting them ask questions, explore, and feel like they belong in that world too.
What steps did you take from having the idea to holding the book in your hands?
The ABC format made the whole idea feel doable right away. It broke the project into small, manageable steps—first deciding what each letter would represent, and then writing a short explanation for each one in a way that a child could understand. That part ended up being more challenging than I expected, but also really rewarding.
For a long time, the book just lived in the notes app on my phone. I worked on it slowly over a year and a half to two years—adding ideas as they came to me, refining them little by little. This was during the pandemic, while we were living in Turkey, so it was a very gradual, organic process.
When it came time to actually bring it to life, I knew I wanted the process to feel personal. A friend of mine nearby, Amber Steffens, had experience with design and illustration, and she ended up being the perfect person to work with. She understood layout, visual storytelling, and how to bring the concept into a finished form.
We also had to figure out how to make it work financially. Instead of paying upfront for illustration, we agreed on a percentage of book sales over time. That made the project possible for me in a season where I didn’t have extra funds, and it created an ongoing partnership rather than a one-time transaction.
From there, I spent time researching publishing options—whether to go traditional or self-publish. In the end, I chose to self-publish. Being part of the coffee world meant I already had some connection points for sharing and marketing the book, and I wanted the process to stay simple and enjoyable.
I found a printing partner overseas and built a relationship with them throughout the process. That experience was actually really meaningful to me—after living internationally, I’ve come to really value working across cultures and building those kinds of connections.
There were a lot of moving pieces—finalizing the design, printing, figuring out distribution, and getting the book into people’s hands. But holding the book for the first time made all of it worth it. It felt like something that had lived quietly in the background for years had finally taken shape in a real, tangible way.
What was the biggest challenge in putting this book together?
The biggest challenge was simply doing it in the middle of everyday life.
We were living overseas, navigating a new country, raising young kids, and figuring out daily rhythms—and this project existed alongside all of that. It wasn’t something I could sit down and finish quickly. It had to grow slowly, in the margins of real life.
What helped me most was shifting my mindset. Instead of trying to see the entire path from idea to finished book, I focused on one question: What’s the next step?
That could be as small as adding a note, refining a sentence, or reaching out to one person. Keeping it that simple made it possible to keep moving forward, even when life felt full.
The final part in this interview series with Christine will be more about the intersection between parenting and a coffee-driven career. Stay tuned!
