Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachael Tarfman-Perez.
Hi Rachael, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Ok, so I have been a SAHM for many years and I now have 4 children. I was potty training my youngest child and she had a habit of dropping toys into the toilet. I was a bit frustrated but thought it might make a good children’s book. I thought that if I was struggling with this issue, that most likely there were other parents out there that were dealing with the same things. So I sat down and created a cartoon character, Gia, who is a 4-year-old girl with purple & brown hair that is curious, smart, and likes to have fun.
From there I wrote up the story and designed everything myself. Now, I am not an artist so this was an interesting process. I had to learn how to draw the character in different positions and having various expressions. I also needed to learn how to do the drawing digitally and found the program GIMP which is similar to Adobe Photoshop. I created my first book, 3 P’s for Potty which has Gia and her mother having a conversation about what can & cannot go into the toilet. There is humor, mother-daughter interaction, and an important lesson to learn.
After that, I decided to write a rhyming book with my character talking about the food she liked to eat. So this book has simple illustrations of Gia with various foods around her and sight words so that children can learn words as they read.
During this time, I realized that I needed to do marketing so I hired a marketing company to help me. They helped me to get my website started, added some posts to my Facebook account, made a couple of book trailer videos, and a few other things but their efforts were not great & ultimately they didn’t honor the contract. I had to deal with trying to get a refund which wound up being a partial refund. So that was an important lesson that I learned. Marketing had to come from me with my ideas and using my own voice. I was not sure how to do marketing or get my name out in the world.
I came to the realization that doing the illustrations for my book was way too hard for me to manage and found an illustrator for my third book, Are We Friends? We had some issues while working on the book which mainly centered around the time difference between the U.S. and Bangladesh and the language difference. Ultimately, we managed to put together a pretty great book that focused on my character Gia meeting two new characters and learning about friendship. In this book, the characters learn about sharing, taking turns, being kind, and helping each other. There are questions that are posed to the reader that help to bring about conversations on what it takes to be a good friend.
I had an idea to put together a sweet book that featured quotes from children worldwide about the love they had for their mothers. This book paired children’s quotes with lovely images to showcase the experience of motherhood. It is very heartwarming and endearing. I had hopes of making a book about dads & grandparents as well but I have been unable to make enough sales with this book yet so any any additional books with this theme will have to wait for now.
It is about this time that I became acquainted to the mother of a young writer (she was 8 years old at the time) and was introduced to a fabulous children’s author community on Instagram. This group has helped me to learn so much about launching books, marketing, social media posting, doing in-person author events, and what items are crucial to purchase & recommended vendors. I have made great connections & friendships in this group. My gratitude for this experience is unparalleled and my experience as an author would not be the same had I not joined.
I published my 4th children’s book in November of 2024 which was a holiday book about some magical candies that decided they didn’t want to be eaten at a Kindergarten holiday party. The story involves teamwork and lots of chaos. My vision for this story was to include different ethnicities and religions for a more well rounded experience. I have been very proud of this story and the way it turned out even though it took quite a while to get it put together.
Presently,I am not working on any new stories but am figuring out some other projects. I do hope to create some new stories in the future.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I did outline some of the struggles that I dealt with along the way in my other description.
1. Problems with my marketing company
2. Some issues with getting the illustrations just right
3. Marketing my books and brand
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a sole-proprietor and work for myself. My brand is me and the characters/books that I have created. I am creative and love to find ways to entertain & educate young children. I am known for my Gia and Candy characters.
I am unique in that I continue to look for different things to work on and create so that children will enjoy reading. I am proud of my books & characters. I am also proud of the book series that targets children aged 3-6 years old.
It is my goal to help young children learn life lessons, sight words, and a love of reading. I do school visits, vendor at various events around orange county and would be happy to meet with families of all kinds to read & do crafts.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
Books and stories matter. Everyone has a story and children love them. Stories are an important part of everyone’s lives. It is important to be open-minded, creative, helpful, tolerant, willing to learn, and able to teach.
I enjoy being an author because it has brought many wonderful opportunities and connections that I would not have had otherwise.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://rachaeltarfmanperez.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/rachaeltarfmanperez
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082532571241
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachael-tarfman-perez-1a9a2713/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@rachaeltarfman-perez-giasw7211/featured
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@rachaeltarfmanperez
Image Credits
I took all of my own images.
