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Meet Joni Rubinstein of The Night Before My Birthday Book in Tucson

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Joni Rubinstein.

Joni, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Our family tradition for many years was to read a short poem to our three children on the night before their birthdays. I found the poem in a magazine and decided to make this our special birthday eve ritual. The night before a birthday is a time of excitement and anticipation. Reading the poem was the beginning of the magical process of getting ready to fall asleep and wake up a brand new age.

Many years later, when my oldest daughter’s friend had a baby, she asked for the poem. It was then that the idea of writing a new and much longer poem came to me. The dream of sharing this new poem as a tradition in a book was very exciting and I began the labor of love that took two years.

Once I had the poem and a head full of images for illustrations, I began the search for an illustrator. I wanted to find someone who I could meet and work with so I began an online search for portfolios of illustrators in Arizona. It didn’t take long to find Juana Martinez-Neal who lives in Scottsdale. With just one look at her colorful work, I knew I had to meet her. I took my ideas and the poem and went to Scottsdale and we began our collaboration. The poem has a line, “The moon will then rise and glow while I sleep, on white puffy clouds like fat fluffy sheep.” Juana told me she is from Lima Peru and she has been painting sheep since she was four years old. The dream began.

After that, the process of self-publishing began. I learned it step by step from business license, EIN number, tax forms, ISBN numbers, library of congress numbers, forming an LLC, to a website with a PayPal store, and a Facebook page. All while working full time as a counselor in an elementary school.

Now, I get to travel with the book to book festivals and stores that carry my book in several states. Getting out of AZ in the summer is more fun when signing books in stores in NY, CT, MA, and ME. The Tucson Festival of Books held in March at the U of A campus is the third largest Book Festival in the US. I am looking forward to having a booth there for the 8th year.

While it looks like a children’s book, it is more than that, it’s a family book, a tradition, and a keepsake for childhood and beyond. The tradition part is reading it to your child on the night before their birthdays, and the keepsake is writing on the pages in the back to record wonderful moments that happen each year. The family part is that once children are able to read they can read it to parents and grandparents, and the tradition deepens. No one is ever too old for The Night Before My Birthday Book. In our family it is multi-generational.

Has it been a smooth road?
Early on I had cold feet and put it on hold but the dream still called me. It was not a hard road, just a long one. It wasn’t something I could do full time. I had a road map and knew what I had to do, although I had never done anything like this before. There were times I was worried that I couldn’t do it. I knew it would take money and that was daunting. What if it didn’t work? I had to manage my worries and doubts, and just dive in. I had lots of support from my husband which was a great help. Anyone following a dream needs someone to be a believing partner.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
The Night Before My Birthday Book does well in children’s clothing stores and specialty children’s boutiques. It makes a unique gift for a baby shower, birth, adoption, or birthday. These are reasons why customers shop at stores like these. As an independent publisher, I like to work with interdependently owned stores.

I am proud of the response to the book. I receive many pictures of families reading the book to their children every year. I decided to make the book to share our tradition with other families and hearing from families in the US and abroad is quite heartwarming. I met a family at MommyCon in Phoenix 7 years ago and they bought a book for their almost-two-year-old daughter. I have received a picture of them on the night before her birthdays every year since.

I am often thanked for the multicultural illustrations in the book. That was important to me and to Juana as well. I like to say that the book is for all families, and while it is not possible to depict all families, I am proud of the diversity in the book.

I am also proud to support birthday wishes, a beautiful non-profit organization that provides gifts and birthday parties to children living in homeless shelters.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Phoenix is an ever-growing city that seems to reinvent itself as it grows. I would be happy to have the book in more stores in Phoenix because the city supports many kinds of independently-owned businesses. Presently The Night Before My Birthday Book is in Modern Milk in Scottsdale and Gilbert.

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