Corey’s Story Journey: The Pain of Remembering
December 4, 2009
Today, on my call with Annie and Katie, we focused on my experience with the first business book I wrote with a client. I talked about the joyous process we experienced putting the book together. This will be presented in more detail in my own book, but I’ll summarize here that the process was almost completely pain free.
Our client was an absolute pleasure to work with. She knew what she wanted and she was willing to engage expert storytellers to guide her through the building of a book that took readers on a ride of what it was like to work with her. We had a ball.
When the book was complete, we began focusing on getting the book published and that’s when the world pushed back. Agents and publishers had been telling me that they were looking for something innovative, something fresh, and that’s certainly what we had created. And those who were reading the book were loving it. So what was the problem?
The problem was that we were tackling new ground. We had created an intimate journey of change that needed to be placed in the business section. And while others before us like Patrick Lencioni had used story in the business section, none had done it with the intimacy we had. There was no proven track record that this would sell and so we were turned down left and right.
Then we came across a group described as an “entrepreneurial publisher” and my client and I flew out to talk with their CEO. We were sold on their ability to mass distribute while leaving a good percentage of the ownership with us. She wrote a check to go through their book design and layout phase to prepare the book for publishing and we returned home excited to get our book out.
As time moved on, they seemed to be incredibly disorganized. We learned that the woman in charge of our book, was a college intern, and when we cornered the CEO into a follow-up call, he made more promises that he never backed up.
We were not seeing the results we were promised and the process felt rude and disrespectful. We had some tough decisions to make. This process played out over months and months until my client nearly had to litigate to get the rights to her book back. The result of this battle was that what was once beautiful (the process and the outcome of the book) was now tarnished. It had been dirtied by deceit and it was painful and it was sad. My client certainly didn’t deserve this and I hated feeling she had been taken advantage of and that I hadn’t been able to prevent it.
I had almost passed by the opportunity to include this story in my book, because the pain and sadness associated with it are so strong. I am proud that I used the experience to create a better publishing model for our clients. One that I continually try to improve so that it respects what my clients go through personally, and values the vulnerability they have offered up to the world. But overall I am left with sadness.
I am confident that one day, someone will take a risk on one of the three narrative business books we have written. And when that happens, I hope to say that the sadness was just part of the journey.
Annie’s Note: This was a beautiful story to hear. Corey’s fierce determination to make something better out of a difficult and painful situation is very touching and powerful. We can all learn resilience and tenacity for change from this.
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