 Welcome back to why in the morning and if it's Tuesday, it's most definitely a definition Tuesday at Y244Channel is where you can find us across all our social media handles at Michelle Asherah is where you can find me across all my social. In this particular session we dive into an interview that looks at healthy parenting, healthy, courageous parenting. In studio I'm joined with Debbie Dovero who is the publisher. We were supposed to have Miss Joyce Murugi but due to unavoidable circumstances, she couldn't make it and Debbie Dovero is here to represent her. We will get to know Joyce Murugi but tell us who Debbie Dovero is. Well I am a publisher and I have published most of my life. I've been in the book world for about 30 years now and I'm an avid reader but I'm also a parent of now adult children and I enjoy doing that a lot but most of all is just enjoying spending my time with people who have a story to tell because in life we often get amazed at the things we watch around us and the people we watch and are amazed at their stories and many times in life we don't pause or stop long enough to look inwardly and recognize what a big story that we carry in our own lives and it's almost natural in life where people look down on what's in their hands or look down on their lives. You know they're saying grass is always greener on the other side it's more or less like that with stories. The story is always better on the other side. Alright and what's your story? When did it all begin for you being a publisher? I think it started with my two aunties. They were much younger than my mom and my mom got married very early so when we my two aunties for example their last born the age difference was between me and them was like six years and the other one eight years so they were in high school when we were growing up and they went to good high schools they were avid readers they would come back with thick novels over the holidays and we thought it was really cool you know the beautiful girls you know in good schools and reading books so we started reading books my brother and I and I mean in primary school you can imagine I read Sydney Sheldon in secondary school I read Robert Ludlam serious books and my my attraction to books started then and so later in life I when I after university although I did the sciences but my first job was in a publishing house at the Nairobi University Press you know just right across and that's how my publishing career began and it's when I was there that I knew that I think what I would like to do is to create a platform for people to tell their stories and nurture them along that process of writing and so you can see what started as a hobby as an inspiration by my young and reading aunties it became a lifetime career and you can see that relationship of impacting when you have somebody you look up to and they have good habits they model to you those habits could lead to a career that's exactly what happened to me yeah yeah you made out you made a career out of something that you love absolutely absolutely and if the strange thing is when I was in high school my English and literature teachers pleaded with me David please do this in your a levels and I was thinking gosh a tough guy like me I was an amateur boxing champion and I'm thinking how does a tough boy like me do literature in a levels and then university sounded rather soft so I went to do sciences pure sciences and his life would have it my life came back full circle after studying all those sciences I went back to the world of literature yeah interesting very interesting and for someone who's watching us having this conversation and they wonder it what does a publisher do like what what what's it like a day-to-day look like in this form of a business space for you yeah excellent question we share the publisher is basically if you look at it you look at the whole spectrum publishing begins with ideas all right you have an idea as Michelle I have a story to tell and I have a story to share with the world I have an idea I want to communicate and how do you do it because you are limited as an individual you can only be with so many people in in time you want to communicate to the rest of the world so publishing is the process of helping you develop your idea and take it through what you call the editorial developmental stages so the idea is suddenly turned in the process of turning it into a book you go through the editorial process you go through design you go through you know sales marketing and distribution through channels and eventually what was an idea ends up in the hands of an individual somewhere around the world in the form of a book now for many years since 1400 AD we've known books only in the form of physical form but nowadays I mean you have even this is in digital format or you know already now but but that process begins with the author's idea the author is the initiator of the idea is the formulator of the words and then the publisher helps them communicate to their audiences effectively packages their idea into a book right yeah and as a publisher from where you're seated how do you decide the best retail space to approach for to stock your clients books well it it happened that you know life is changing so much because as I grew up you could only access books like in two locations maybe three now the first location when we were growing up is the library see we grew up with libraries nowadays libraries are not as popular and I would encourage people to make libraries their friends now the second place that was there is it was the bookshop but again the bookshops were few and first bread and most of them concentrated in in in towns in cities and towns and so the third place that we could access books as we grew up was where was basically in schools if there is a school library and if the school concentrates on encouraging people to read non-text books you know other other general books but the real place that books should always find a place is the home and so the way we decide on on how to and where to place our books is a very crucial decision one is you want the widest spread possible so you need more to make sure that they're in bookshops you want to make sure that they're in libraries we want to make sure that they're online on online channels on our own shopping cart select book talk Africa dot com and Amazon dot com and and and and all those other online channels but in Kenya again Kenya is a very entrepreneurial market as you know and already there are quite a number of online shops for example no ria dot com and places like those and so it's to ensure our our goal ultimately is that good books excellent books good stories are in every home in every village in every town in every city in Kenya in Africa and the world easy access yeah easy access all right yeah so talk to me about book talk Africa yeah what's what is it all about so book talk Africa Michelle you know the tragedy of Africa is that they say if you want to hide anything they claim yeah hide it where on the book in the book and that's a that's for me is a very depressing statement so the reason for book talk Africa is to ensure that we create stories that people want to read because you must incentivize people to want to read something so you must have create good stories so book talk Africa is about creating stories that will have one people we want to read will have an impact on their lives at any age and at any stage in their lives so you will find good books story books colored books you know for children at an early stage you will find you know good books for younger grow younger adults you will find good books for adults and you will find in adults there will be categories women category there is a category for leadership we have fiction we have reference books and so really I think our vision is to see that transformation people engaging with stories local stories every day and providing them with high quality excellent content all right and speaking about children and young adults we're holding a book known as going the distance a mom's steadfast support of her teens dreams by Joyce we reggae so how did this come by how did you meet Joyce well so sometime not too long ago last year I got a message on you know such one of the social media platforms and said David this is Joyce and Joyce is you know someone that I had met long ago in at the university and said look I am not in Kenya I'm in the US but I have a story that's burning in my bones and I knew that the only people that I would talk to as an outlet for my story is book to Africa and and so could we schedule a call you know when it's good time you know good time for you to speak in Kenya and so we scheduled the call and you know we listened to her story her story is a mom who had to make fairly difficult decisions and and and it sounded like a story you know because that's our reason for being as a book to Africa to tell good stories and and so that's how our journey began and and we listened and we knew yes this is something that we would want to publish it's a very interesting book known as going the distance the does that mean or from the title going the distance does it explain or rather tell the story of what she went through just bringing up our kids and probably balancing her career as well see the way I look at this story is in the context of what's happening in not just our country but around the world and not just in Africa around the world I think there's a serious crisis in parenting and the way we see this is because we find kids growing up without models of what they should do you know in terms of values and in terms of the kind of adults they would want to grow to be and we find that because of how society is evolving so fast people are very busy in their careers people are very busy in their social engagements and then people think that to the extent that you provide for the kids and you have someone to take care of them and you take them to good schools and you know people think that they have accomplished the role of parenting what joys does in her story is to change that narrative and to show that is a highly engaged professional joys runs you know a property consulting business which she has done for 25 years she is running a home she has a family her husband and other children and then half child her last-born child had a dream this is what I want to do in my life as a career and it required her to adjust her busy schedule how she ran her office and how she ran her home and she took that courageous decision to go to the US where her son went at a very early stage and support her because when kids are out there alone you know many things can happen and she decided the most important thing in my life is not my career it's not my social life it is my child so she was driven by love to go that distance and it is metaphorical in a sense she moved a physical distance which is like 8,000 miles you know from Kenya 14,000 kilometers or something like that but she also moved a distance in terms of look leaving a business behind and making that sacrifice you know to to to say the only thing that matters now is my child and I'm going to do it yeah so yes the title is so appropriate to both the physical journey and including even spiritual journey interesting it's you know funny enough is that from what I'm hearing yeah it's the fact that any parent can relate to this to Joyce's story yeah from one point or the other so you also a parent David yes tell us a couple of ways or some of their parents can align their priorities to cater for their child's personal growth well excellent I mean yeah you've asked that question as a parent look I am a parent over 25 year old I mean 27 year old and at 22 year old and I would say that it's the best thing that has ever happened to me I consider parenting such a great responsibility look I and my wife we made a decision to bring about children so it must become our responsibility to ensure that they become mature confident highly engaged and you know adults that our responsibility and I think some of the things that we need to make decisions on for example is something that we always like mostly neglect the amount of time you spend on your kids so I made a choice that regardless of how busy I am as a career person as a business person my first priority is my kids so I ensured in all my business my children had me so my kids would say their father was present never would miss any of their events and it's from the smallest whether it is their sports day their awards winning awards days their closing day their parents days if they want to go to be dropped for an event to their friends to a they could always count on their father regardless how busy that I was and I think to answer your question the most important thing as parents that we could do is to honor our kids by giving them time it's not money they need it is not cars it is not houses they need more than all those things they need a parent who cares who models good behavior who models good values and who encourages them to be well balanced adults when they grow up oh I fantastic and for us sit to sit here and talk about the book going the distance about healthy parenting that means there is a crisis when it comes to to this particular space as we said earlier on different parents make different sacrifices for the sake of the kids let's talk about the toxic aspect of it we have manipulation whereby a parent will manipulate their kid to feel that we actually did a favor you know bringing into this world and growing up in that space there's a show of black tax as well another luggage so how can it you know a child or even a young adult just deal with this kind of a scenario you don't show you you've you've you've talked about a major issue yes now that you find many parents either never wanted to be parents in the first place were never prepared to be parents in the first place they never had a model of good parenting in the first place they never had mentoring in the in the first place and and so they end up in situations like the ones you're talking about where they they feel it's either the kid is a baggage or an infringement on their time and they're doing them a favor or things like that and I think what I would say in situations where kids grow up and come to the sad realization that they can't look up to their you know to their parents and sometimes they don't have relatives around to look up to I think there is always there may always be somebody around you in society and unfortunately society has broken down a lot when I was growing up I was a child of society so even if my parents for whatever reason were absent there were uncles there were aunties you could look up to even if they were absent there was a neighbor because remember the neighbor was like a parent you know to me that's how I grew up and even if there is no neighbor who knows you any adult around you was more or less like a pirate up now that's our society has broken down however there is possibly always somebody that around either an older cousin or someone another friend that they can look up to what I would encourage young people is not to live with a victim mentality I was born by responsible parents I mean an irresponsible situation I give up my life I think we all have you know the destiny of our lives in our own hands even at an early stage so I would ask young people to look up to possible mentors whether they may be friends with they may be teachers they may be religious you know people in in church or you know some other religious environment yeah there will always hopefully be somebody who will help hold the hand of the young person and work with them and give them hope and give them courage and help them recognize that even if they have that deficiency of parenting there is a lot of gold within them then they can dig a couple of ways to deal with that kind of a setback so let's go back to the book yes going the distance so there's a book launch happening yes I tell us more about when it's going to happen and more about more in details about the launch well the launch of this book will actually be tomorrow okay which is Wednesday the 4th of August 2021 and it's an evening event and you know what what we normally would do with our book launches is is to make to create a sentimental moment and help people reconnect with their own stories and so we will have music for example we will have artists we have excellent local artists and you know we will have a good program we will have a keynote address from you know someone who's gone through that journey of parenting and has you know in the legal circles very well you know respected and has you know being head of divisions of a high court that you know look after young you know children and and all that and and so we are looking forward to and and look Michelle I think for us the other thing about the launch is that this is a first-time author it's our joy to publish a first-time author like Joyce and introduce her to the world you know through something like a book launch amazing yeah amazing so where will it be happening and what's the time it will be at Serena okay yeah all right thank you very much David for creating time to be with us and talking about matters pertaining a healthy parenting so how can people reach out to book Africa if book talk Africa if they want to be part of you guys yeah yes I mean anybody wanting to tell their stories yeah they can first reach us on our website which is book talk Africa dot com and there is an author's submissions you know page yeah link there they can get us all our contacts are there our books are available in all leading bookstores so if anybody goes to a bookstore like prestige they will find it TBC they will find these books and also the online platforms for sales you can buy the books on on our platform book talk Africa dot com but also on Nouria dot com and other online stores all right thank you very much David we're creating time to be with us we were looking at going the distance by Joyce Murige thank you very much thank you Michelle all right so that's all we had for you right here on entrepreneurship Tuesday on why in the morning at white 254 channel is where you can find us across all our social media handles at Michelle a Shirai so you can find me across all my social so have a nice day to keep yourself and make sure you keep safe and we'll see each other next Tuesday