We are officially published authors! And thanks to the efforts of all of you - we have the pleasure of that lovely orange bestseller flag…!
As well as being the bestseller in the HR and Personnel Management category, we also made second place in Business Life and third in Business Leadership. A massive thank you from us both.
We’d love to celebrate this great start (and the book generally) with as many of you as possible, so if you haven’t yet signed up for our launch event on 23 June, then you can find out more and sign up HERE. Our wonderful guest speakers are Sara Tate, Natalie Adams and Seth Kybird and we’ll share more on them closer to the event.
You can also register for free to hear Julie speak (and ask her questions) at the Like Minds Business Breakfast TV session on Wednesday 19 May here.
Whenever you reach a significant milestone , it’s always good to reflect on what you’ve learned. It got us going back to the start of our journey, thinking about how we managed to get to the point where our book is actually in people’s hands. There was plenty we learned along the way, and we’re both great believers in noticing and building on the learning in every situation. So here’s our individual reflections, with Diana’s first.
We met for an initial brainstorm in Brighton which was energising and fun. We identified all the barriers that people in the middle of organisations face and developed a working hypothesis - that managers could deal with these difficulties themselves without needing senior manager sign off or approval.
Photo by fotografierende on Unsplash
To validate this, we agreed a two-stage research approach, using a qualitative method to first establish the barriers and validate our hypothesis, followed by a quantitative questionnaire to confirm and prioritise these. We contacted our network for permission to conduct interviews within their organisations across the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. This enabled me to do a combination of group and individual interviews during the latter part of 2019.
When it came to the results, we were in for a surprise… having analysed the responses it was clear that the findings disproved our hypothesis!
And that surprise highlighted one of the many joys of working with Julie. She is completely un-phased by the unexpected, focusing on the possibilities and learning. Upbeat in all meetings and especially brainstorms, our interactions are fun as well as productive: a true radiator and not a dreaded drain.
While the hypothesis was disproved, we had gathered really valuable insights into barriers and frustrations for managers which coalesced around emerging themes. They varied from bureaucracy, like budget approvals, through to team management and personal influence. The subject of meetings generated a particularly intense level of frustration!
Building on the data we had, we organised a focus group to share, discuss and refine the themes from the interviews. We also probed what they were seeing at work, what it was like managing in the middle and what our book might be able to help change. From this eight clear themes emerged. The consistency with the interview findings gave us confidence in the themes, so we followed up with an online survey for further validation and to help with prioritisation. We could immediately see from the short, anonymous survey that all eight themes resonated with middle managers.
With this confirmation came the shock that the time had come to actually write the book! We both wrote independently against the themes and shared these. Julie then did an amazing combining the two and at the end of the mashing (as she called it) was our first draft. After sending it back and forth a few times, we had what we thought was a final draft. We shared that with our wonderful beta readers - as the publishing jargon calls people who read and comment on the draft - whose comments were very insightful as well as providing great support to us writing the book.
While the research and draft writing was taking place, we were also preparing Book Proposal forms for prospective publishers. These were hard work but they really helped us focus on who we were trying to reach and what help and support we could offer them. We were delighted when Alison Jones of Practical Inspiration offered us a publishing deal. When Julie got the news she immediately messaged me. I can remember clearly as I was walking around the village of Bergheim on the wine route in Alsace, so perfect timing for a celebration!
Well the first thing I should say is it’s been a fantastically rich experience. And, in equal measure, not at all what I expected. There are three really stand out pieces of learning for me.
I’ve really enjoyed learning about the publishing process and how to give a book the best possible chance of success. It all starts with not just having an idea worthy of a book, but one that really meets the needs of your audience. Sounds obvious eh? But my enthusiasm to write meant I said yes before I knew what we were writing about. Diana’s passion for a particular problem meant we started off with a really clear construct which we could have ploughed on with. But she was equally keen that we be grounded in research (which thankfully she was prepared to do!)
That research confirmed some of our assumptions, and challenged others. It helped us refine content. It gave more space for existing ideas and challenged us to think about new ones. It kept our target reader front of mind. I talk about the value of user led design in my work, and I had never really thought about the application of it in this context, but it was vital.
The first step in the publishing process is to hand your manuscript over to a development editor who reviews the structure and flow of the book – not a subject matter expert, but someone who knows what a good book looks like. You also hand it over to what are known as beta readers – a small selection of your target audience. The idea being that you collate all of their feedback into the final draft. Despite having done the research, and being resolutely guided by the needs of our audience, I felt a palpable sense of fear as I handed over something that no-one but us had seen. Isn’t it strange how imposter syndrome keeps coming back for more? The good news was that the six days I had set aside for re-writing based on their feedback needed less than six hours. If ever there was advert for the time saving benefits of being user led in your work, that’s it!
Photo by fotografierende on Unsplash
Getting to that point was also a voyage of discovery. As I said in our earlier post, I love writing, but writing a book is more than just a collection of content. It requires structure and flow. And for us, it needed real life examples, useful signposting and to be practical and pithy to read. Recognising the times where you were in the right frame of mind to do that was so important for me. I can’t get up every day and generate great content in a standard timeslot I have allotted to write. I need to be in the right headspace, with the right inspiration. Then there was the challenge of the mashing: taking my content and Diana’s and trying to give it a single, conversational tone of voice appropriate for our readers.
But the biggest benefit for me of producing Own Your Day was the way it reinforced one of the things we talk about as being essential in the modern world of work - the power of collaboration. Whether it was generating content, learning new things, or simply keeping each other honest with regular check ins that forced momentum and progress: it was exactly the rocket fuel I needed. I am absolutely certain that as a first time author, I could not have written this on my own.Â
I have learned so much about myself. I have got to know Diana better. We have supported each other through good times and tough times – especially in lockdown. And the output is better because of the differing perspectives and experience we brought to every challenge we faced. It really is all about the people…
Other than giving you an insight into our learning on this journey together, what thoughts has reading this email prompted in you?
Has it caused you to reflect on a recent experience of your own?
To look for new insights that you can build into your work?
To think about the last time you paused to reflect on the learning you get every day?
Whatever your reflections and experiences are, we’d love to hear about them in the comments section. Simply click on this link to share your thoughts:
Leave a comment
We’ll be switching to fortnightly updates for the rest of May and June. We’ll be back in touch in a couple of weeks with more content, and details about plans for our launch event, which you can sign up for here. Thank you so much for reading these weekly notes - we hope they’ve given you some useful food for thought. It’s been great to have you with us on the journey to publication and bestseller status!
Best wishes
Julie & Diana
Share Own Your Day
PS You can order your copy of the book via these routes:
Direct from our publisher here, where you will get an automatically generated 10% discount for being one of our valued subscribers
From Amazon here
From Bookshop.org which supports independent booksellers here
From Hive which supports local high streets here