My Story

“Your life is your story, don’t let anyone else hold your pen.”

Hi my name is Tenecia Nicole and I am theFounder of Black Women Publish and a dedicated Publishing Coach.

Let me start by saying, I didn’t start out with a publishing company, instead I stumbled upon it while writing and self-publishing my first book, Her Imprint: Lessons in love, relationships and womanhood as taught by my Mother.

While writing my book I discovered there were so many things that I didn’t know about the self-publishing process. For instance, I didn’t know what ISBN numbers were (or how to use them), I didn’t know how to layout my book (so I used on online tool) and I didn’t know if I could pre-sale my book on Amazon or not (at the time I couldn’t).

I had more questions than answers and when I finally worked my way through each part of the self-publishing process I realized that I didn’t want anyone else to go through this process alone, so I created Black Women Publish.

My initial vision for Black Women Publish was a website that provided aspiring authors with the tools, resources and information they needed to self-publish their books. I ran into a problem when I realized that didn’t know how to create the website that I envisioned. Shortly after my realization I had an opportunity to join a Business Coaching program, entitled Purpose 2 Platform by Patrice Washington, and there I gained more clarity on what I needed to do.

I discovered that the website that I wanted to create was really a business that I needed to start. After I made this discovery, I got scared. I didn’t know if I could really do it. I didn’t know if aspiring authors would actually pay to have me help them through the publishing process. I didn’t know how it would work, until… I received my first paid client, and then I received my second and then my third and then I realized that I had a business. I realized that people trusted me enough to teach and guide them through the publishing process until their manuscripts turned into books (or journals).

I also discovered that the business that I created was more than just a business, it was a publishing company. After making this discovery I immediately felt like the life I envisioned as a little girl came true. Growing up I didn’t know what I wanted to do but I knew that I enjoyed reading. I never thought much about what it all meant until I created Black Women Publish. Once I looked back on my life, my past jobs and my experiences, I realized that everything that I loved to do (and hated to do) lead me to this moment.

Almost a year ago, my dream turned into a reality and my reality was, I had a publishing company. Having a publishing company also scared me for a lot of reasons, but the biggest reasons were ownership and royalties. I knew that I didn’t want to own any author’s work and I knew that I didn’t want to take a royalty from any of the books that I helped authors publish. As an author myself, I know the value of ownership and I know the value of an author receiving their royalties, so I decided that my publishing company wouldn’t be traditional. Instead I realized that my company would work off of a hybrid model. With this hybrid model, the authors I work with have the option to publish under the Black Women Publish imprint but they retain all of the rights and the royalties to their books. It was important to me that I built a business with aspiring authors in mind and that is how Black Women Publish continues to operate.

The dream I held onto as a child, lead to an idea, that turned into a publishing company. I wrote this story to show others how I took an idea and turned it into a business.

Before I close, I’ll leave you with this, if you have an idea that you can’t seem to shake, trust it. Move forward with it, allow it to take shape and to grow. During the process, you might discover that your idea is the key that unlocks someone else’s future.