We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Rita Goldner. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Rita below.
Hi Rita, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career
I consider literacy the most important part of a child’s education. I do author visits and presentations in elementary schools. I try to teach that writing and reading are the magic tools that enable them to share ideas and stories with someone they’ve never met. I hope to open children to the practice of reading just for the pure fun of it, not only for a school assignment.
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’ve always been a fan of Mother Nature, especially wild animals. For years I had been painting and drawing animals, and since I prefer drawing from life, I often went to the zoo to draw. I spent a lot of time at the orangutan exhibit, and learned about their endangered plight. I got the idea of drawing attention to wild orangutans by writing and illustrating an adventure story about a wild young orangutan in Borneo. That first book was well received, and won awards. It’s now in its second print run of 2000 copies, and since, I’ve written and published two more books, with Mother Nature as my muse. I enjoy doing a lot of author presentations at schools, with a reading, Q and A, and discussion of natural sciences.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
I have a fairly good following on Facebook and Instagram, and I consider my email list even better. I got my social media following gradually, by joining groups related to child literacy or wild animals. I didn’t promote myself, but commented on others’ posts and I posted comments not related to my books. People got to know me and friended/followed me. Then I joined a group of 8 picture book authors and we hosted a contest on Facebook. We all chipped in to buy a Kindle Fire for the grand prize, and we gave e-books (our own works) as the minor prizes. Entrants had to give their email address and knew they were signing up for kids’ newsletters. I got thousands of names that way. With every newsletter, I give a free coloring page or something, and asked subscribers to tell their friends. I collect more subscribers with a ‘ballot box” at book fairs for people to drop their email address in, and I give a small gift for that. Since I’m an illustrator, it’s easy to come up with PDFs for prizes.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
My first book was published by a small traditional publisher. Traditional publishers pay for everything: the editing, formatting, and printing. They usually pay for illustrations, too, but I wanted to do my own. That publisher raised capital by crowdfunding, which I had never heard of. They used Kickstarter.com, a company that collects supporters’ credit card numbers, and charges them once you’ve reached your goal. Their goal was $6000.00 and printing was the biggest cost. They printed 1000 copies. I helped them with the set-up, which involved them making a video, a pitch to get supporters, and tiers of gifts for levels of support. A lot of the gifts were matted prints of my original artwork, or copies of the book, once I’d finished. The publishers taught me a lot of the best practices for crowd funding, so I could probably do it myself, but I haven’t, because the sales of each successive book funded the next.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ritagoldnerbooks.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ritagoldner/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ritagoldnerpicturebooks
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/mwlite/in/ritagoldner
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/RitaGoldner
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvRQ5UEkaNiJ8-7GA_JoiuQ
Image Credits
Rita Goldner