June R. Jewell with Mark and Arlene Smith of Greenway Engineers in Winchester, VA

May 2, 2013 was a very exciting day for me as my new book, Find the Lost Dollars: 6 Steps to Increase Profits in Architecture, Engineering, and Environmental Firms was launched at a party at the Tower Club in Vienna, VA. I was able to celebrate the evening with my children, family, friends, and many loyal clients who have supported this project from the beginning. The saying, “it takes a village” was never truer than it has been for me as I have gone through this journey of becoming an author. Click here to see some of the pictures of the party.

It takes many months of hard work, research, and learning to write a book. I like to say it is like giving birth; there is the conception, long gestation period and finally the book arrives into the world! The good part is that I am not 30 pounds overweight, and I am able to sleep at night as opposed to what happened when my kids were born.

The most gratifying part of this entire experience has been the support I have received from so many people. It is very important to me to thank all of the people that have coached and helped me write and publish the book, contributed valuable content to the book, and supported my efforts in promoting the book.

First of all, I would like to thank Donna Kozik whose workshop called, Write a Book in a Weekend helped jump-start my writing efforts and provided a great deal of guidance and motivation to get the book through the first stage. I highly recommend Donna’s program to anyone who is considering writing a book and needs some help to get started.

There were so many people that contributed content to the book, it is impossible to mention all of them in this article. They are all listed in the book appendix, along with their company names and web links. Mark Zweig of ZweigWhite was very supportive throughout the process by providing his financial performance and marketing surveys to me to, and writing the foreword for the book. Having this industry information to reference in the book provided valuable comparison points for the industry.

Many other firm principals and industry experts such as Ron Worth of SMPS, Ed Friedrichs, Frank Stasiowski of PSMJ, Tim Klabunde, Zack Shariff and the entire management team at Allen & Shariff, Tony Vitullo, Chris Hillmann, Chuck Irish, John Amatetti, Ted Maziejka, Bob Gillcrist, David Stone, Jay Appleton, Ed Kroman, David (Sully) Sullivan, Joe Cappuccio, Wes Guckert, and Guy Hinkler took the time to read the book and give me their feedback while it was still a draft, which was extremely beneficial in improving the quality of the book. I can’t tell you how valuable it is to get positive feedback and constructive advice in the early stages of writing a book.

Brenda Stoltz of Ariad Partners and her husband Ken provided a great deal of editorial assistance which is a must-have in writing and publishing a book. The editing process actually took longer than the writing stage, and really transformed it from a draft to a manuscript. I also hired a professional editor who made the book conform to official writing standards. Brenda has also worked with me side-by-side to develop the launch plan to promote the book, and has done a fantastic job at helping me get the word out, and achieve Amazon Best Seller status.

I am very grateful to the members of our launch team who are a group of readers and supporters that helped to get the word out about the book in the first few days of May, and have been extremely supportive. You can see the list of the wonderful people in this group here.

Finally, I could not have done this without our bonus partners who provided their own valuable content to help promote the book on May 3, which was the official book launch date. Thanks so much to Brenda Stoltz, Deborah McLaughlin, Ingar Grev, Skip Weisman, Marcus Sheridan, Joe Abraham, and Michael Angier.

It is an exciting moment in your life when you finally publish your first book. The feedback and reviews have been very positive, and my wish for this book is that it helps our clients and other A&E firm leaders take a different look at their business to find additional profits, and gives them a renewed interest in improving their business management. I still welcome feedback and hope that if you read the book, you will connect with me in person, and online, subscribe to my blog, and let me know how Find the Lost Dollars™ has helped you to improve the way you run your business.