An Elf-Made Success | How the Elf On The Shelf Found a Place at Christmas | 1

Business Movers

Wondery

History, Business, Entrepreneurship

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 26 December 2024

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mother-daughter duo Chanda Bell and Carol Aebersold turn their old family tradition into a new Christmas children’s book they call The Elf on the Shelf. But when they are rejected by the major publishers, they decide to finance the release of the book themselves—and begin a new Christmas phenomenon.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Want to get more from business movers?
0:02.2	Subscribe to Wondry Plus for early access to new episodes,
0:05.7	ad-free listening, and exclusive content you can't find anywhere else.
0:09.6	Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:13.0	OneRee. It's spring 2005 at a playground in Loganville, Georgia, about 40 miles east of Atlanta.
0:35.7	Shanda Bell watches from a park bench as her young son plays on the
0:39.6	swing. She's a former middle school English teacher, and a few months ago, Shanda and her mother,
0:45.3	Carol Abrasold, wrote a Christmas story they called The Elf on the Shelf. They sent the finished
0:50.6	manuscript off to literary agents and soon signed with a small firm in New York.
0:55.2	That agent then submitted the elf on the shelf to publishers.
0:58.5	Now Shanda is anxiously waiting to hear whether any of them are interested.
1:02.3	And today, as Shanda encourages her son to go down the slide by himself, her phone begins to ring.
1:08.7	She pulls it out and checks the caller ID.
1:11.3	It's her agent.
1:12.4	She takes a deep breath.
1:14.5	Hi, Jennifer.
1:15.6	How's it going?
1:16.6	Hi, Shanda.
1:17.5	Well, we're finally out of 40-degree weather here in New York.
1:20.5	Things are looking up.
1:21.5	Gosh, we're already in the 70s down here.
1:24.0	Can't wait for the humidity.
	...

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