Well it has been a rather exciting project to contribute towards a book for female entrepreneurs - one that I’d actually love to read too! Collaboration is the ultimate tool for unlocking our collective potential, empowering us to achieve greatness beyond what we could ever accomplish alone. So, as soon as Mindy The Book Midwife mentioned her grand plan I was interested, I was on holiday at the time, so after a discovery call whilst lounging by the pool, I was 100% in!

I mean, how hard can it really be to write one teeny-tiny chapter of a book? …………

Well quite hard it turns out; there were rules on timescale, structure & word count and when I started to draft out my ideas, the fear that my chapter was going to be utterly sh awful set in!

But it turns out breaking the chapter into three questions actually added clarity into my writing and to the flow of the book. I actually enjoyed the writing and editing and I only got nervous when I’d submitted my chapter and was awaiting editorial feedback. 😱

Writing down some instances of collaboration in both of my businesses made me feel really proud of the projects I’d been part of, and reminded me to keep my eyes peeled for new collabortunities.

The publisher’s feedback came in with minor changes, so I felt far more confident at that stage … We’re really writing a book! 🤩 📖

An eye on the design

One of the first questions I had asked Mindy on the discovery call was whether I could design the front cover - (Hard no!) But when we received the three initial book cover ideas from the publishers, it’s fair to say we all had very different viewpoints on them!

But as they say: "Politeness is the poison of collaboration." – Edwin Land

So Lisa and I (the two designers within the Collab) decided to create a new cover design together, taking aspects from the favoured designs to showcase a new cover that would hopefully appeal to everyone (a collab within the Collab). We weaved some book design magic into it from Mindy’s expert book-selling perspective, and luckily the Collab were now on-board with the cover design.

I know Lisa and I feel extra proud that we got to be involved visually too. #sorrynotsorry Mindy!

What’s next for our book?

Right now we’re less than a month to the launch and counting - We’re all busily preparing for different aspects of the launch (such as building this lovely website, if I do say so myself) We’ve also just had a delivery of copies of the real paperback book - so great to finally hold it in our hands. Oh and there’s the launch party 🥂 coming up! It has been a great journey and it shows that even big collaborations can create magic.

Would I write a whole book? Hell yes, but only if I could design the cover!