Interview with Children’s Book Author Valerie Spaliviero

The Adventures of Ruby and Roberto Raindrop What type of books do you write? My book is a children's book called The Adventures of Ruby & Roberto Raindrop. The age group would be 4 to 8 and beyond. It is a book I wrote primarily to be read to a child, although 8 year olds should be able to read it themselves.. What is your newest book about? The story is about water, told as two raindrops, as it falls and touches plants, animals, humans and moves from one environment to another. It journeys down rainforest streams, arctic ice, rivers, and oceans and comes into contact with all living things associated with those environments. The imagery, the sounds, the perfume of a forest floor encourage the reader to connect all these parts as they journey with the raindrops. Water is planet earth's most vital resource for all life. What inspired you to write it? My son David inspired me to write this story when he reminded me of all the stories I used to make up spontanteously from my imagination, after we had finished reading one of his children's books.  The Adventures of Ruby & Roberto Raindrop is a children's book I wrote to encourage parents/grandparents to read to their children and to communicate to the child the importance of water as it journeys over and through this magnificent planet . I think many parents/ grandparents have lost how important their voices are and how much knowledge they can impart to their children during book reading time. Children ask questions which can carry the conversation over to many other levels of discussion on important life issues. What is the writing process like for you? I did not set out to do an educational, environment story it is just what developed as the story unfolded. The process of writing this story came relatively easily and just seemed to flow of its own accord. Many other ideas of where this journey could continue on to revealed themselves to me and I will put these into my next book. What did you do before you became an author? Before writing I was a nurse caring for the elderly. In my conversations with them I saw the wonderful memories they had with their children and grandchildren as they shared times together. The appearance of children in their day brought such joy to their hearts and life to their conversations. How does it feel to be a published author? Having my first book published was wonderful. Finally getting a completed hard copy was exciting. It is quite different to just seeing it on a computer screen. Any advice for struggling writers? As this is my first book there was so much more information I should have acquired before I put this story into print. Marketing is a world of its own and not one which I was familiar with. I would have developed more of a plan, if that is possible, to announce the launch before it went to the printers. I also would have put a budget into place for advertising etc. My advice for struggling writers would be to get the most honest sincere publishers you can find. Someone interested in your story being successful rather than someone just interested in how much money they could get from you. Where do you see book publishing heading? I know all the talk at the moment seems to be on e-books rather than hard copies but there truly is something irreplaceable about having a hard copy of a book. You can put it down to go get a cup of coffee or whatever and then just pick it straight back up again and immediately start where you left off.  New studies on reading apparently show that books read as e-books are glossed through and the reader does not retain the information as well as someone who has a physical copy of the book.  I like to have a book library in my home. It is a quick reference and easy to show friends books you found to be thought provoking, interesting, exciting and just books that brought joy to your life. It is also great to be able to give friends one of the books from your library, to read themselves.             Her web page is www.rubyandrobertorainbook.com/book/ -- please visit! Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer, Media Connect, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2014