Grow

I have recently attended and presented a workshop at the DO lectures in Wales and had the pleasure of meeting Miranda West, the publisher of DO Books. (A few months ago, we interviewed Miranda on The Common Creative podcast)

A common theme of many of the talks at DO revolves around stepping into your creative power, which reminded me of the story that Miranda relayed about the commissioning of the DO book covers. This story has a twist in the tail, not so much about how we step into our power, but how we have the opportunity to allow others to step into theirs.

After getting the nod from DO Lectures co-founders David and Clare Hieatt to publish books by DO speakers, Miranda set about finding a cover designer to create the series identity. She was a big fan of the artist James Victore, who had given the first of his two DO talks in 2012. She had a hunch that the going rate for book cover design was way short of the fees that James typically commanded, but decided to ask him anyway.

To her surprise, he said yes. But on one condition. Whatever he created was it. No feedback (unless it was positive!), no changes, and full creative control. Miranda agreed, but it was a huge decision she had never made before. Anyone who has worked in a publishing company will know how involved cover design meetings can get.