We recently connected with Nadine Duncan and have shared our conversation below.

Nadine , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Diary of a Traveling Black Woman: A Guide to International Travel was first published in April 2015 using CreateSpace by Amazon. It was my first self-published book. I wrote this book as a general guide to traveling internationally as a Black woman. When I repatriated to the United States after three and a half years abroad, I noticed that many of my coworkers and friends had never traveled outside of the United States. Many of these people were impressed at my choice to live and work abroad along with my travels outside of the US. A common question began to surface each time I spoke with another Black woman about my travels: Do they like Black people there? / How do they treat Black people? I soon began to realize that there were three main things keeping many of the Black women I knew from traveling: cost, lack of representation, and the fear of racism. As a result, I wrote Diary of a Traveling Black Woman to share my experiences and offer some guidance on travel. From there I created a social network, The Traveling Black Women Network, to create a space for Black women to discuss travel in relation to our lived experience. As the network grew, I began to publish city guides written by other Black women under the same brand. In 2018, I decided to begin building a publishing company behind the brand that would center Black women. As I learned more about the publishing process, I recognized the power of creating a platform where Black women could freely share their lived experiences. I enjoyed reading, writing, and editing stories that I could connect to as a Black woman. In 2020, I began exploring different genres in 2020 and in 2021, I published my first biographical fiction followed by my first book of poetry.

Nadine , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Nadine C. Duncan, EdD is an educator with over 17 years of experience in P12 education. Her primary educational focus is serving special populations–special education, gifted, and ESL. She has taught at all grade levels as well as served as a job developer for post-secondary youth. Dr. Duncan also spent time abroad serving as the Head of Faculty of an all girls school in the United Arab Emirates. Upon returning to the United States, she founded the Traveling Black Women Network and published 11 international travel guides–three of which she wrote herself.

In 2018, Dr. Duncan founded Grace Royal International and expanded her publishing company to include biographical fiction, poetry and other such genres under the imprint, A Divine Journey, and scholarly publications in conjunction with The PrOOF Project, Inc. You can learn more about Dr. Duncan at www.nadinecduncan.com. You can also follow her on Social Media at @travelingblackwomen, @publishyourstory, and @the_proof_project.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Entrepreneurship is hard. Many people see the rewards, but don’t understand the efforts and disappointments. Currently I am still a one-woman show looking to bring in capital without obtaining a loan.

The cost to publish one high-quality, print-on-demand guide can cost as much as $4,500. This amount includes securing an ISBN, Copyright Filing, Copyediting & Design Services, and Publishing Platform Fees. After learning that most Brick & Mortar bookstores do not accept books published through Amazon, I realized I needed to obtain new ISBN numbers for each guide and republish them using a platform that is widely accepted by bookstores.

This has been a costly and time consuming journey. However, I am determined to ensure Black women have a reference point for travel.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Authenticity! I enjoy connecting with other Black women online who range from novice to experienced travelers!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.travelingblackwomen.com
• Instagram: @travelingblackwomen | @publishyourstory | @the_proof_project
• Facebook: @travelingblackwomen | @publishyourstory | @theproofproject
• Linkedin: www.LinkedIn.com/in/NadineCDuncan
• Twitter: @travelingblkwmn