How one act of kindness transformed my business

This month, I've been posting my kindness challenge, but in this article, I'd like to share how one act of kindness transformed my business.

I'm not a natural entrepreneur and in the same way Thomas Edison found 10,000 ways not to make a lightbulb, I've found 10,000 ways not to build a business. If you've followed my journey, I've been Shannonside Training, Karen Brown Training, Clutter Coach Karen and so on. Each one taught me something but just wasn't quite right.

However, things changed for me in 2019, when a friend posted on Facebook that she'd like to set up a blog and could anyone help. Me being me, I offered to help and one morning over coffee she registered a domain name, sorted out some website hosting and set up a basic website and posted her very first blog post.

The funny thing was, Faye had a whole pile of writing done, intending to gradually release it through her blog. And then I said something that changed everything:

My first book began as a series of blog posts. You've got enough written to publish a book!

Faye had always wanted to write a book, and hadn't realised that she'd written enough content for that book already!

She sent over the Word file and I formatted it into a book, adding front matter, back matter etc. After we ordered a book cover and it arrived, we were ready to create a KDP Amazon account for her and uploaded her book.

Within 6 weeks of the coffee, Faye Hayden became a published author.

Faye became my very first raving fan and in all the businesses I'd created, I'd never had one of those. It was like the universe telling me this was THE ONE!

However, I'd been self-publishing for years. I was a MS Word expert and couldn't get my head around the fact that people may pay me for doing something that I found easy and that they could do themselves. So Faye set me a challenge. She booked us a stand at the Little Christmas event at Kilronan Castle and told me to add a sign saying offering to help other to publish their book.

The lady who was on the next stand chatted with us, saw the sign and took my card.

Mary Kara was my first paid client around book publishing, and by the end of January, she had published her first book, a mindful gratitude journal for her mindfulness clients.

Since then, I've helped over a load's more people to create and publish their own books.

As a coach, I help my clients clarify what they want to publish and who their target audience is. As an expert using MS Word, I help format their books for them, so that they can focus on the core content, whatever that may be.

I've been able to turn a photograph of a page layout into a word document, and show others how easy it has become to self publish your own book.

Last year I launched my Master Self Publishing course platform , showing you not only how to publish your own books, but also how to publish card decks and digital products so that you can create lots of streams of income from your ideas. This was my most affordable way of helping would-be authors.

This year, I developed and tested my "Publish a Book in Just ONE Day" online workshops. Using book templates from my range and a book cover template one Canva, learners can dip their toes into the world of self-publishing in a small group and safe environment. The feedback was amazing.

So, if one of your goals is to publish a book in 2022, then I have lots of options to help you.

If it's a quick win, then try my workshops .

If you want to publish your signature book, then get in touch. You can connect with me here and we can have a chat or you can book a call via https://biy.ly/coffee-with-Karen.

Writing your book is only the first step, it also needs to be edited, proofread etc so if you want to publish a book by November for the Christmas market, then you really do need to get writing!