In 2011, Megan Williams was enjoying a busy, rewarding career in media communications at the BC Transplant Society. It was also during this time that she decided to pen a memoir chronicling her five-year love story with boyfriend Chad Warren, and his ultimate death from incurable multiple myeloma in 2009.
The book, Our Interrupted Fairy Tale, which Williams self-published in February 2014, won the Hyack Teen Read Award and was a long-list nominee for the Whistler Independent Book Awards.
“A few months after Chad’s death, I found his journals and the blog entries he had kept from the time he was first diagnosed at the age 26 until he passed away at 34,” she says. “As I flipped through the pages, on the last one Chad had written, ‘Publish this when the time is right.’”
That journey would begin her initial foray into “sidepreneur” – a term coined to describe someone who has a full-time career while building a business on the side. “My work on the book never affected my full-time job; if anything, it enhanced it,” she says. “I only wrote on the weekends and in the evenings.”
But it wasn’t until a couple of years later, while Williams was driving her nine-year-old stepdaughter, Madison (from her husband, Brad Watt), to school that the idea of starting her own publishing company would begin to bloom. “Madison didn’t like to read, so to encourage her I downloaded some books by Robert Munsch. We would listen to them while driving from the North Shore to Coquitlam,” Williams recalls. “One day, Madison said, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to write our own book?’” That conversation morphed into a book they co-authored, Don’t Call the Office, about a blended family.
Throughout that process, she once again tried to decide whether to self-publish or go the traditional route. Then, one day the Vancity Business Babes networking group asked if Williams was willing to run a workshop about self-publishing. “After the workshop, I received many offers to consult with other would-be self-publishers,” she says.
That sparked the idea of launching her own self-publishing company. “I started thinking it would be nice to make a little more income, so I began to research whether or not there was a market for another self-publishing company,” she says.
At the time, Williams was on contract with the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA), in corporate communications. “I wasn’t really fulfilled there, and I felt that I could find a much more rewarding career on my own,” she says. In February, Williams launched the Self Publishing Agency. Although it was nerve-racking and sometimes scary, Williams says having the security of a 9-to-5 job allowed her to transition from her career to full-time entrepreneur. “It never felt like a risk because I always had the stability of a full-time job,” she says. “I also never allowed my side business to affect my work.”
It was a great piece of advice from a friend that helped keep Williams focused on the end goal: “Time isn’t going to open up for you, so you need to make time for what is important.” Today, her company is growing beyond her expectations. So well, in fact, that when the 32-year-old’s contract with the PHSA ended in April 2017, the self-publishing guru didn’t renew.
“I feel like the wedding planner of book publishing,” she says. “What began as a way to supplement my income became my new career. The skills I took from my marketing jobs assisted me tremendously in getting to where I am today.”
For fellow sidepreneur Gillian Behnke, her own side business began much like Williams’. As manager of community relations for Canada Place, Behnke has a very demanding job overseeing marketing, education, community relations and events. Add a husband and two young children, and life was full.
But seven years ago, weighing 230 pounds, Behnke decided she was going to finally lose the weight that had crept on during her two pregnancies. “I was doing the gym thing and running, but it was taking way too much time away from my family,” she says.
Under the stress of juggling a demanding career and family life, she turned to Beachbody home workout programs. “I lost 80 pounds in eight months by doing my workouts early in the morning before the kids woke up,” she says, adding she also drank Beachbody’s diet-aid shakes. “Then, a friend told me about an opportunity to run Beachbody fitness challenges.” That dovetailed nicely into a side business, which provides extra income for her family.
As an independent distributor/coach, Behnke’s job is to help others reach their health and fitness goals through challenge groups, which are posted on a Facebook group page, or one-on-one interaction via text or email. She devotes approximately three hours a day to Beachbody.
“First thing in the morning and at night after the kids have gone to bed, I get on my computer and help people from all over North America stay accountable to their fitness goals,” says Behnke.
Today, she is steadily growing her virtual business. “I have a balance that is working right now.… I could make more money if I put more time in but I don’t want to compromise my family.... My kids [10-year-old son and a seven-year-old daughter] are still so young,” she says.
