We were lucky to catch up with Dominique Turner recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Dominique, thanks for joining us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

I’ve known since I was in middle school that I wanted to be a writer. Even as I worked full time in youth development, I knew it was temporary. I quit my job before my daughter was born because I wanted to stay home for awhile. Shortly after my daughter arrived, the pandemic began. During that time, I had the pleasure of helping a first and second grader with their reading skills. I loved coming up with stories and activities and writing stories with them.

I spent a lot of time trying to find books at their reading level that had characters who look like them. While I found some, I felt there could be more diverse books accessible for early readers. I wanted to contribute and create another platform for others with the same passion. As I joined my passion for working with kids and my love for writing, it was no secret that I found the very thing I was meant to do. I started researching, looking at other companies with similar missions, and getting a vision for our brand. I spent a lot of time talking to other publishers and picking their brain on their process.

For our first title–Cookies Are NOT for Breakfast!–we decided we wanted to launch on Kickstarter. There was a lot we didn’t know about marketing and getting our book in front of people. It took months to prep for a 30 day campaign. After sleepless nights, a lot of unanswered emails, a lot of worrying and many social media posts, our campaign was fully funded.

From having the initial idea to start our own children’s book publishing company, to successfully launching our first title on Kickstarter–the feeling is still unreal. We still have so much to learn and more mistakes to make, but we are having so much fun figuring it all out!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My husband, Keith and I are the founders of Cocoa Books! We were both born and raised in Cincinnati, where we currently reside with our daughter. We both primarily work from home and share in educating our toddler. It’s been a fun time exploring our city as a family while also starting a business!

We are so excited to introduce Cocoa Books to you! We are a local publishing company with a passion for creating quality children’s books with diverse characters. Our vision is to help create more space and a platform for writers from marginalized groups. Being family owned and operated is something we take pride in. During the pandemic, I approached Keith about starting this company with nothing but an idea and a lot of passion. He didn’t hesitate to jump in and learn the ins and outs of publishing. Having such a supportive partner along for the ride has truly made some of the most difficult moments much easier. I’m extremely proud of where we are right now.

With a business in its infancy, we’ve been fortunate to make connections with schools and organizations who wish to diversify their libraries. Launching our latest book, Cookies Are NOT for Breakfast!, on Kickstarter really allowed us to reach readers in the states as well as other countries. We’re excited for future connections and the opportunity to partner with others to increase diversity in children’s books!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I mentioned our Kickstarter campaign, previously. It was probably the most difficult moment in our business so far. We took a few months prior to launch to prepare and try to get the word out. Our initial campaign was going to be in the summer, but we had to push it back a few times. We didn’t officially launch until right before the holidays. Probably not the best time, since we were competing with holiday shopping and travel plans.

Still, we continued with our launch. The first two weeks went really well. There was a moment when we went days with 0 backers or pledges and we got nervous. We continued to reach out and post on social media. Honestly, I felt like we were annoying family and friends. Keith was the complete opposite. He never stopped reaching out and sharing the campaign. He was so encouraging during the last two weeks of our campaign, and I’m grateful for his extra push to keep going.

We ended up reaching our goal with a little less than a week left of our campaign. Although some were not able to pledge to our campaign, we were able to get in front of individuals and organizations who were interested in our project.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

We use a couple platforms! Since our website is where we make the most from sales, we send customers directly to our store.

Customers can also order from Amazon. Our main use for Amazon is for exposure. We don’t make as much from Amazon sales, but we’re able to be discovered by shoppers from all over. Amazon is also great in situations where I may be out of stock. Customers can still order instead of waiting for a new shipment if they’re in need of books sooner.

Lastly, we use Ingram Spark for distribution. Retailers use this platform to discover books for their stores. Similar to Amazon, Ingram Spark takes a cut, so we do not make as much from sales on their platform. It’s a great platform to reach a larger audience.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cocoabooksstore.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cocoabooksstore/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092178391134