One of the best things about blogging is "meeting" people who share your interests. Whether they live in the same country, or halfway across the world, it's wonderful to be able to look at things from different angles and points of view.
I've met moms recently who have truly inspired me, so I decided to add "Moms Inspire Moms" interviews to my "Inspiration for Moms" category. Even though I do spend the majority of my time writing about how parents can inspire a love of learning in their children, I also like to find ways to inspire moms as well.
Who could I possibly choose to light the way for this new interview series? Why, Terry Doherty of The Reading Tub! As someone who found a way to reinvent herself after becoming a mom, and not only live her passion, but share it with others, she inspires me in so many ways.
Terry left behind an almost 20 year career in government service when she became a mother. It wasn't long, though, before she discovered a way to turn her passion for reading into a new career. All it took was one simple idea, an open mind, and a few friends to set the nonprofit organization, The Reading Tub, in motion. Within a few months, a business was born, and she hasn't looked back.
According to the company web site, the organization was started "to help people with children in their lives (parents, grandparents, godparents, extended family members, and friends) sort through the shelves of children’s books and select the ones that are best for their child(ren). What started as a small group of parents is now a larger group of volunteers."
As the Executive Director of The Reading Tub, Terry's "purpose is clear: make it easy for families to create a positive reading environment at home, find great books (that don't involve TV or movie characters) and make it accessible to EVERYONE!"
In part 1 of the interview, Terry answers questions about her organization. In part 2 tomorrow, she'll answer questions about the reading life of her family. In both cases, she has plenty of great advice for you! Here's part 1:
Dawn: The Reading Tub® started off with one simple idea and a couple of families. Your daughter was just a toddler when you started all of this. How did you manage?
Terry: When I started, the
Reading Tub® was just a hobby. I wanted to create a book review website for
children’s books. I would play with it during Catherine’s morning or afternoon
nap. I’m not a technical type, so the whole idea of creating a website was a
HUGE step for me. I looked at it as a chance to exercise my mind and stretch my
comfort zone without the pressure of it being a job. The first ground rule was
that I would only work when I was on a Mom break. So for that first year, the time actually shrunk as naps went away.
Then it increased to half days a couple days a week with preschool, and now I
have six hour blocks – at least in theory – five days a week.
Dawn: How has the nonprofit organization grown since 2003, and what are your plans for the future?
Terry: When I decided to transition to a business, I built the organization on the model that we would only grow as much as the bank account allows. I didn't want to start with debt ... it's too much pressure. I also didn’t want a lot of overhead; IMHO donations should go to the mission, not paying for the electric bill.
Letting the check book guide us also helps me monitor growth and make sure we don’t outpace the infrastructure. Still, there are days when I think the Reading Tub® is going nowhere, so to speak. But when I open the website and see that beautiful redesign, look at visitor numbers, and think about how many requests I’ve gotten from people who want to write book reviews for us, it's clear we are growing and moving forward. There isn't a year yet where we haven't had at least one new opportunity come our way. I’m always looking for partnerships to help (the collective) us to leverage our resources and talents.
I keep a list of goals and a bunch of visualization Post-its on the wall over my desk. So far, every effort to get a grant has failed; so one of my goals is to actually win a grant. I would really like to get our Read it Together program off the ground. So much literacy “happens” in those first five years, I would really like to start funneling books to pediatricians to get books to kids who probably don’t have books at home. I would also like to implement some interactive literacy tools. We can do more to improve search returns, too. I am a firm believer in the idea that things happen when they are meant to be, so I sigh a deep sigh and remember that it will work its magic "all in good time."
Dawn: What advice would you give to other moms who'd like to start their own business?
Terry: Set your mission, goals and your rules; write them down; and then put them where you can see them every time you come to your workspace. Recognize that if you want to be Mom first, your business will be a full-time job with part-time hours, at least at the beginning. For me, it has remained that way, but that’s my choice.
A little organization and planning goes a long way … you can’t do it all, so knowing your mission and goals will help protect you against the lure of doing more and/or stretching yourself too thin.
It is really important that you not only like what you’re doing, but believe in it. For me “believing” is more than just a passion. You are going to have to persevere, do a lot of research, and gain confident doing things totally foreign to you because you may not have an expert to handle it for you. I am an English major, not a businessperson, but I’ve had to learn all kinds of things … taxes, billing, fundraising, building revenue streams, etc.
Last but not least – and it sort of goes to being realistic – don’t compare yourself to anyone else. We all do it; it is a natural thing to do, in part, because comparisons help us see where we are. But they can eat at you, too. For example, I would love to get through books faster so we can take advantage of more buzz books – get our name out there a little more. It’s a nice thought, but that is not our model. We read books with the target audience. That will always take longer. It's not easy and takes continual practice, so I try to stick to the plan and let go of the rest.
Dawn: The Reading
Tub® places an "emphasis on the less publicized or hyped"
books. Can you explain how you decide which books to review?
Terry: When we were getting started, we read the books on our kids’ bookshelves or in the library. We selected books where we could contribute something to the conversation. We have a few classics, mostly because we had them handy. I would say, though, that even with a classic like Goodnight Moon, we added some content you don’t normally see. For example, we talked about its value as an easy reader; our adult reviewer (in that case me) didn't really like reading it 500 times ... even though lots of people love it. I'm sure there are other folks who aren't Goodnight Moon fans, so (hopefully) it is reassuring to them to see an alternate view. We don’t have a lot of blockbusters, for the same reason. Even in 2003, there wasn’t anything new we could say about Harry Potter ... and there were plenty of opinions about it!
With the exception of books associated with licensed characters, films, or shows, if it lands on my front step or in my mailbox, we will place it with reviewers to read. Most of the big houses don’t know about us, so we don’t get tons of ARCs (advance review copies). A lot of the smaller, independent houses do know about us, as do the self-publishing/POD houses like AuthorHouse.
I think it's really cool when we (the collective kidlit "we") find and talk about high-quality gems that don’t have PR budgets those blockbusters (real and imagined) do. It really makes reading so much more rewarding for us and new audiences, too. I created a page on the blog just to list the books other bloggers have talked about that look particularly intriguing. It’s my virtual TBR: click here for The Reading Tub wish list.
For our corporate purposes, the goal is reading, so it doesn’t matter whether someone borrows the book at the library or goes to their local bookstore. We read every book, but we don’t review them all. Our benchmark is whether or not a reviewer recommends at least borrowing the book. I would say that the majority of the books in our collection – we just finished review number 1,600 – have a “borrow” recommendation. These are great books -- even must-reads -- that readers will enjoy, but may not want to invest in because they have a limited shelf life (think: toddler books, easy readers). Our “buy” standard is pretty high. These are the books you want to keep in your library permanently or would purchase as a gift. You read these a lot more than once, they will grow with or resonate with your child for years, you will save them to help your son or daughter start their child’s library, keep to read with your grandchildren, or would be a special gift for a family or child.
To be continued tomorrow....
In the meantime, please feel free to take a closer look at The Reading Tub web site! You can find many wonderful book reviews (by children and adults) by age, reading level, or subject. You can also find some great links, book reviews, author/blogger interviews, and children's literature news at the organization's blog.
Oh, and if you're not yet familiar with the PBS Parents Booklights blog, you should check that out while you're at it. Terry has just started blogging there as well! You can find out more about her by reading her very first post here.
For part 2 of this interview, click here