Adjacency and the Point of No Return
My Self Publishing Journey
A very wise and fun friend, author Bob Goff, said to me: “Adjacency, stuff happens when I just look right there.” I had just asked him, “Did you grow up loving horses?” We were standing next to stables of thoroughbred racehorses and gentle riding horses on his property, feeding them carrots. I assumed he had always wanted horses. “No, I never really thought about horses. One day, I was looking at the adjacent property, its unused training track, vacant stables, and thought, ‘Possibility!’ I’m going into town to find someone who knows about horses!” He sought out a local race horse trainer who just happened to be looking for a facility and shortly after, the trainer and his horses arrived as Bob’s delight in horses took off faster than a thoroughbred at the starting gate!
I committed to writing this story after a lot of encouragement from leaders at the Orange County Department of Education. My idea was I’ll write down the story and give it to them. There, project done. I had no dream to write a book and I didn’t know how to write a book. The idea of writing a book was just too daunting. So I wrote the “story” of a hundred and thirty pages and gave it to them, only to get the response back, “This is a great book. It should be published.”
Published…what? I don’t know any publishers, agents, and would they even be interested in this story by a new author? Do I even qualify as a new author? Self publishing sounded way too complex to me. I was looking at a huge project, strategically with thousands of details and feeling very overwhelmed.
A month later, Bob introduced me to this concept of adjacency. To me, adjacency was just looking at what I had - a hundred and thirty page story - and who I already knew that could possibly help me toward publishing a book. As I thought about it, I remember a friend from my church and grad school days who had been ghost-writing and editing for others as a side gig. That call was a major turning point as I found out he had recently gone out on his own as a developmental story editor and was helping others publish books! In fact, he knew and had worked with a freelance manuscript editor and a layout and website designer.
That call took me many steps forward, and felt like the “point of no return!” There was no turning back or changing my mind to not try and go forward to publishing a book. Adjacency was working!
Finding someone to create my vision for the cover took more inquiries and a few starts and stops. I didn’t know anyone who could do this, but I kept asking more friends. After some thought, one of them suggested a mutual friend who had moved out of state. I just never knew among her many talents that she was starting a career as an illustrator as well! It took her less than a week to draft out the concept. “The Kindness of Color” is her first book cover!
In Greg Campbell’s book, “The Surprising Power of The Coil,” Greg defines the coil as “a valuable thread of personal relationships that…enriches you and others in countless ways in all aspects of your life…to achieve greater results than you would otherwise enjoy. Through these personal connections come better opportunities for everyone joined in some way to your coil.” Well, indeed adjacency was working as well as my coil of friendships. What wasn’t possible by myself, became a reality with this team! When people ask me how long did it take to publish my book, they can’t believe it. I started writing it in September of 2019, learned about adjacency in September of 2020, and had a book in my hands and available on Amazon.com by mid- September 2021!
I’m so grateful for this team who worked virtually together, living in 3 different states and across 3 time zones! Here we are meeting together in person for the first time! A Christmas lunch to celebrate, December 2021 (from left to right):
Drew Tilton of AsioCreative, Natalie Johnson of Natalie Lauren Design, myself, May Angeles Brueckner of Illustrated by May, and Jessica Snell my manuscript editor. While I had met each one of them in person before, as a virtual team, this was the first non-virtual, live-in person meeting for all of them. What Joy to celebrate their work together!
Surprising stuff can happen when I just look around and start right where I’m at!
In the Press
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