Earlier this year, Lara and I were part of co-creating a new book on healing psychological trauma (recently published in Dutch, English translation coming up).

What started with the dream of one person, became a reality through collaboration of a group that involved over 100 people.

The short version of the story? The one person having the dream was Ybe, traumatherapist and Lara’s mother. She started writing the book. Then Lara and Jill added illustrations and poetry. Then, Rob and 20 more people joined in organising a marketing and social media campaign. Finally, close to 150 crowdfunders made the first print of the book a reality!

For many people involved, this project shifted the perception of what is possible in book publishing.

Most importantly: creating a book doesn’t have to be some heroic solo effort, but can actually be more of a fun co-creative process (still very heroic at times).

And another one: it isn’t needed to convince traditional publishers of the value of your book and hope that it will be printed, but instead you can start your own movement around the book, print it yourself and then have publishers contact you.

We wonder if there are any other dreams out there in search of co-creation…..

Reflecting on the whole project, we believe that when a group of people gathers around a shared purpose and is facilitated well, powerful stuff happens.

If you have a dream of publishing a book, or a movie, or something else, we invite you to join our upcoming inspiration session. In this one hour event, we will share the long version of our story and answer your questions about co-creation, crowdfunding, book-publishing and more.

The session is free and will be held online (via Zoom). It will take place in the evening (from 20:00 – 21:00, CET), in the week of September 5-9. If you want to join, let us know your availability in this doodle and we’ll get back to you with the final date as soon as possible.

About the book:

“Sterker worden waar het pijn doet” (Getting stronger where it hurts) is the title of this do-and-feel-book on healing psychological trauma. Real-life stories from the author’s practice are combined with beautiful illustrations, poetry and exercises to encourage the reader to feel through their pain and find resilience on the other side.

For more information, feel free to contact us.