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

Alright, Dominique thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

When my son was a toddler, I became frustrated with the options of faith-based children’s books. Every time I went to the bookstore, I could only find stories that were impractical and did not feature Black main characters. I desired more diversity in children’s books because, with every book I read that featured characters who didn’t look like him, I felt I was feeding into the narrative that his stories didn’t matter enough to be written about. But I believed in children’s literacy too much to stop buying children’s books altogether.

One day, I was inspired to do something about it.

Eleven years ago, I watched my son Obinna standing on our home’s stairs, staring at me with a curious grin. It was around Christmas time when wearing pajamas all day long was encouraged. My son was content with one hand fixed on a candy cane and the other gripping his trusty yellow blankie. He was more than content; he was carefree and not anxious about anything. He smiled at me in his blue Superman PJs in a confident manner that assured me he could do anything! He was fearless. I knew then that I had to show up for my son and children just like him in a way I never had before. Because of that moment, I was inspired to begin writing my own faith-based picture book!

I prayed that God would help me on my publishing journey to figure out what I needed to do next because I did not have a clue. He reminded me to “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” Matthew 6:33. I understood that no matter what I decided to do next, God would bless it if I did it with him in mind. I was inspired to move forward with the tools that God had given me. With lots of research, reading, time, money, effort, and a little help from friends, I was able to publish my first book in the series, The Adventures of Super Obi: Nothing to Fear, on November 20, 2020.

Since that day, I have been so grateful to God and proud of what I could accomplish independently. I was able to crowdfund over $8,000 on Kickstarter to help with my book’s illustration, printing, marketing, and distribution. I have received numerous five-star reviews, sold thousands of books (through my website and major retailers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, and Walmart.com), booked speaking engagements, sold my books in local fairs within my community and directly to bookstores at wholesale quantities, and so much more. I have published two more books this year and will add more adventures to The Adventures of Super Obi series in 2023!

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?

I am a Haitian-American award-winning author, wife, and mom of three who lives in Miami, FL. My children and our many family adventures constantly inspire me. I also help to oversee the children’s ministry at her church and am passionate about publishing exceptional, inspirational literature that offers biblical encouragement to all. My picture book series, The Adventures of Super Obi, stars an adventurous young boy with a trusty blankie who learns the lessons of life with the help of the Word of God. I have also published a women’s prayer journal, Remain in the Vine: A 10-Week Daily Devotional Prayer Journal on the Fruit of the Spirit. Aside from writing books and serving my community, I blog about various motherhood topics on my website, dominiqueokonkwo.com, and post about related subjects on my social media accounts (i.e., Instagram and Facebook) @MiamiMotherhood.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Writing picture books is a lot more expensive than everyone thinks. Unless you are also an illustrator, you must pay for one for hire to give your books the professional quality you are looking for. After months of finding the right illustrator and agreeing on a price, I realized that I would have invested thousands of dollars in publishing this book without selling one copy between the final book’s illustration, editing, and printing costs. There are numerous ways to crowdfund money to get any project off the ground, and after much research, Kickstarter had the best platform for me. Yes, there is a lot of pre-planning work needed to help ensure your success in this all-or-nothing platform, but once I launched my 30-day campaign, my project was fully funded in 1 week and ended with a total of $8,086 of campaign funds. Using Kickstarter enabled me to raise the capital I needed to offset my upfront costs for independently publishing my book while taking pre-orders and reaching new customers. I would recommend this form of crowdfunding for creatives looking to put together the initial capital for their business.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

After the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, I realized that life is too short not to pursue dreams and passions that may be a little scary at first. So, with the help of some online resources, I started looking for literary agents. Six months and 56 query letters later, I did not have a firm lead on any agent interested enough to take me on as a client. I did have a handful of agents interested in my manuscript, but they were not thrilled that my story ended with a short devotional for families and a prayer. These agents mentioned that they were not in the market for faith-based books because they are not as marketable as “regular” picture books and wanted me to consider taking the devotional out of the story. Comments like these confirmed my frustration with the publishing industry and the type of stories mainstream publishing houses are pushing out to audiences. Regardless, I decided that removing “God” from my story was a dealbreaker. And that is why I decided to publish my Sper Obi book series independently. I created my publishing Company, Okonkwo Press LLC, in 2021 and worked to make my publishing dreams a reality. This experience early on in my publishing career has shown me that there is more than one way to accomplish a goal, even if you have to bet on yourself to get it done. As creatives, we often don’t give ourselves enough credit for being much more resilient than we may think.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.dominiqueokonkwo.com
• Instagram: @MiamiMotherhood
• Facebook: @MiamiMotherhood1
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DominiqueOkonkwo