9 minute read
Women in agribusiness – Rachel Numan
Doing good deeds through books
By Cheyenne Nicholson
As if life wasn’t busy enough raising two small boys, working on the farm and being a vet, a Waikato farmer is now publishing children’s books.
When Waikato veterinarian and dairy farmer Rachel Numan decided to go down the path of publishing her own book, she never imagined the journey it would take her on. Two years and another book later, she says it’s a bit of a dream come true.
“It’s been a bit a journey, and a terrifying one at times, but I’m enjoying it and the fact that my work can support great causes like Meat the Need makes it even more worthwhile,” Rachel says.
Numan is the author of the popular Tractor Dave children’s books. Alongside this, she’s also a vet, child wrangler and dairy farmer. She and husband Chris farm 700 cows near Te Awamutu, with their sons Jack and Oscar. Everything related to animal health and calf-rearing sits in her realm of responsibilities onfarm and she likes to get out on-farm where possible with the boys to help out as needed.
“I’ve always wanted to be a vet, it was what I wanted to do since I was about eight. I moved down to vet school and met Chris who was already in farming. We love the dairy industry and we’re looking forward to where it’s going. We want a farm that we can hand over to our kids, if that’s what they want to do,” she says.
They are equity partners and sharemilkers on their 192ha effective farm. The System 4 farm is twice-a-day milking year round and focused on maximising production and caring for the land.
Growing up, alongside her ambition of becoming a vet, she also had a desire to be an author, but it wouldn’t be until she went on maternity leave that she took the steps to be one, by writing her first children’s book.
Based on the little 1983 David Brown tractor the family owns, the idea for the first book was inspired by her eldest son.
“He loved the tractor. He’d sit and watch when Chris drove past the house, it even does little wheelies, and he just adores it. I was on maternity leave about to have my second baby and found myself with some time up my sleeve and thought I’d sit down and write a little story for my son,” she says.
Rachel Numan always wanted to be a vet but also an author. She was inspired to write her first book Tractor Dave by her son while on maternity leave.
Needless to say, the story was a big hit and with encouragement and support from her husband, she began exploring ways to produce and sell the book. Increasingly, many new authors are opting to go down the self-publishing route rather than the traditional route of aligning with a publishing house. While the onus on every aspect of the process lands on the writer, they have full creative control and ability to earn more from their work.
“While I never looked into sending a manuscript to a publisher, I know it’s a very competitive game. Doing it myself I knew I had to have everything to commercial standard, so it could compete in book shops alongside the commercially-produced books,” she says.
First up was getting alongside an illustrator who would help bring her words to life. Through the wonders of social media, she came across Filip Lazurowicz, an illustrator based in Poland.
“I loved his work and got him to create a character image. I posted it on the Farming Mums NZ Facebook page to Waikato veterinarian and dairy farmer Rachel Numan has published children’s books based on the family’s 1983 David Brown tractor.
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Rachel and husband Chris with sons Jack and Oscar. The couple milk 700 cows on a farm near Te Awamutu in Waikato.
gauge interest to figure out how many books I should print on my first run. Lots of people liked it, and it was a confidence boost I needed at that stage of the process,” she says.
Rachel has been self-taught throughout the whole process, relying heavily on her own research to point her in the right direction. She’s also picked the brain of other Kiwi authors like Sam Laugessen, author of Luke the Pook books. She aligned with a manuscript editor to refine her story. As a selfconfessed perfectionist, she admits this process was quite long, with every word scrutinised and played around with to get it just right.
“I was back and forth with my manuscript editor pretty much right up until publishing date, working to get every word just right. I’m a bit of a perfectionist,” she says.
“I put so many hours into researching how to do independent publishing. The expense of it really depends on what quality end product you want. I wanted something that I could pitch to bookstores and that would compete with the other books on the shelves, so I wanted that commercial standard.”
One of the biggest challenges was working with her illustrator Filip. The time difference meant communication often lagged, and then, of course, there was trying to get him to draw a classic New Zealand landscape; a bit tricky when he’s never been here. As a result, much of the landscape seen in the Tractor Dave books is based on reference images from her own farm.
“He was really great at taking direction and I love what he’s created,
“I then had to figure out how many books to print on the first run. Typically the more you print, the cheaper it becomes. I agonised over that for ages before my husband said, ‘look, let’s just go with 5000’. It seemed like an insane number,” she says.
After settling on a figure, finding a printer to work with, setting up a website and all the rest, she was all set to launch her book in September 2020. While 2020 was a challenging year for many, it was a positive one for many small businesses with the rising popularity of the Facebook page Chooice celebrating and promoting small NZ businesses.
“I think in terms of timing it was really good. I had pre-sold some books and it was a bit touch and go getting them printed in time with Auckland going in and out of lockdown, but we got there. I was terrified when it all went live,” she says.
She needn’t have been though. The books were a huge hit. Over 4000 of the first book have been sold to date, with more orders trickling in every day.
“Getting the second book under my
belt felt really good too, and I’ve got a third brewing. I don’t have long-term plans for all this, as long as I continue enjoying it, then I’ll keep going. It’s been amazing being able to do this around my kids and the farm, and I’m proud of what I’ve achieved so far,” she says.
Her second book Digger Disaster, was released in November and she’s added a t-shirt line to her offerings on her website as well.
Rachel wanted her books to do more than entertain and educate children. She wanted to support causes that do good in the community and could have an impact. She donates 50 cents from every sale of the first book to Meat the Need. For the second book, for every book sold, one NZ native tree is planted.
“We’ve donated over $2000 to Meat the Need now, which I’m so proud of. Future books will also have associated causes with them as well. It’s a lot of work to put a book out, often more than the payback, so it’s important that I’m supporting something good out of it, something bigger than me. I also wanted to help change the negative narrative around dairying and spread some positivity,” she says.
When it comes to juggling all that life demands of a writer, mum and farmer, Rachel says she wishes she had the magic formula for balancing it all, but she mainly just tries her best and to be realistic about what she can achieve in a day.
“Writing is great because it’s something I can work around my kids and being self-employed with the farm also gives a level of flexibility,” she says.
“I read an analogy once about glass balls and plastic balls. Some things in life are plastic balls, you can drop them, and they bounce and are okay. Other things are glass balls that can’t be dropped. I have great support from my mum who lives close and of course my husband and our wider family.” n
The second book in the series, Digger Disaster, was released in November and more are planned.
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