We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tenesha Curtis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Tenesha, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

The two major factors that influenced the growth of my business were serving clients well and partnering with other professionals.

Serving clients well means listening to what their vision is for a project, not forcing my preferences onto their creations. This takes empathy, patience, teaching skills, and effective problem-solving techniques. In 2024, we were trusted with more than 1.08 million words at GetBookHelp.com and about 90% of those were from returning clients or authors who were referred by one of our satisfied clients. Helping people make their dreams come true means they are more likely to come back for future services and more likely to share their excellent experiences with others.

Partnering with other professionals is another major component of our growth. I’m just one person and can’t do it all (at least, not very well!). So I began building a network of other freelancers who possessed technical or creative skills that I didn’t. This allows us to serve authors in a wider range of ways. By myself, I could handle “big picture” stuff like outlining, typing, manuscript evaluations, or developmental editing. But I don’t have the brainpower for copyediting and my lack of visual art skills makes illustration a service I can’t provide myself. But by partnering with trusted copyeditors and illustrators, I’m able to create a team that can now work beyond novels, including children’s books, graphic novels, and book promo materials. This adds multiple other services to our menu that couldn’t be accomplished in a quality way if I were trying to do it all alone. Being able to assist with the development and publication of more kinds of books opens the door for more clients and more revenue.

Tenesha, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am the founder of GetBookHelp.com (Writerwerx University) and I spend my days helping writers publish their work. We offer a range of services from typing up handwritten manuscripts and assisting with outlining through to helping authors publish and promote their finished books. This allows newbie writers to get the support and guidance they need to get through each step in the book development and publication processes in order to publish profitably, quickly, and with less stress. My background as a mental health clinician means that I am able to patiently help while still preserving the author’s vision for the project. Offering customizable payment plans and fully online service ordering options (meaning you can select your services, upload your manuscript, and pay your fee all without any phone calls, emails, or in-person meetings) is a huge draw for many authors. The fact that I am an author myself—a trait many book editors and publishing managers lack—also means I know what it’s like to be in an author’s shoes. I’ve never gone more than a year without publishing a book, so my experience is always up-to-date for each new client. I’m always open to answering questions about any aspect of being an indie author and can be reached at +1-404-384-5258 or through the GetBookHelp.com website.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Past clients have been the top source for new clients for us. This is why making sure a client walks away happy is so important. I think sometimes business owners can get so caught up in trying to make direct connections with strangers that they don’t focus enough on caring for the customers they already have. Doing good work, showing off that work, and helping to promote past clients are all ways to help them feel more supported and increase the change that they will be sending you referrals in the near future.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Treating people with respect. And there are ample opportunities to do so within the publishing world.

One is respecting people by not spamming or cold-calling them. This telemarketing tactic generally just serves to hurt business’ reputations and annoy people who possibly could have become customers if the initial contact was appropriate.

Another is allowing people to say “no” without consequence. Someone saying they don’t want to work with your company is no different than someone saying they don’t want to date you. Trying to harass them into working with you makes you look desperate and aggressive, neither of which makes people more willing to work with you in most cases (the same way you wouldn’t want to date someone who behaves that way). There are plenty of other clients in the world and the best partnerships are usually with those who are enthusiastic about working with you, not the ones you have to beg or badger for their business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://GetBookHelp.com
• Instagram: https://Instagram.com/WriterwerxUniversity
• Facebook: https://Facebook.com/WriterwerxUniversity
• Linkedin: https://LinkedIn.com/company/WriterwerxUniversity
• Youtube: https://YouTube.com/WriterwerxUniversity
• Other: https://ReadTenesha.com

Image Credits

ASPC 2024 photos by J. M. Tompkins.
Sisters in Crime photo by Cathy Tully.
GetBookHelp.com banner by Tenesha L. Curtis.