Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Kate Juniper, founder of Juniper Editing & Creative, located in Montreal, QC, Canada.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Juniper Editing & Creative is a boutique all-female creative coaching, book writing, and editing house serving women writers worldwide. We support writers at all points on their writing journey: whether they're ready to write their first or next book and want to do so with the support of a book coach or they're seeking help from an editor to evolve the first draft into a manuscript that agents and publishers will fight over or they're still (or once again!) on their quest to really finding themselves and their most aligned life as a writer and a creative woman in a capitalist world.

Tell us about yourself

When I started this business nearly six years ago, I wanted greater freedom for myself and, romantically, to live and work in the service of art. As a book editor starting out, I quickly found that while I was great at dotting the i's and crossing the t's, and even better at story development, my greatest strength, and the thing that came most effortlessly to me, was supporting my clients in a much more relationship-based way. Sure, they needed their manuscripts edited in order to stand a chance of publishing one day, but just as important—and actually, more important—they needed to feel seen, heard, and guided as the creators that they were. They had so many questions and no one to answer them. More than that, they had doubts, fears, insecurities, and day-to-day challenges that negatively impacted how they felt about their creative lives.

Now, as a creative coach who specializes in helping writers of various experience levels write their books, I have the privilege of receiving my client as the artist/writer / creative powerhouse that they are (yet rarely see themselves as). I get to remind them of their own talent, their inherent worthiness, their deep wisdom, which allows me to guide them through the process of writing their first (or next) book with more ease, pleasure, and lightness than most people imagine is possible. This is what motivates me above all else: Reminding women and femme writers of their power, their brilliance, and their right to be at the table. It's something we have learned to deny ourselves—for centuries—and it's so vital to the process of finding and evolving our creative voice and being able to embody and express fully who we are. And for me, that's what life is all about.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Building a business that's aligned with my own personal values and desires, rather than one that simply ascribes to widely agreed-upon versions of 'success.' It's so easy to get wrapped up in what your business 'should' be doing, how it 'should' look or function nowadays with social media playing such a huge role in everyone's marketing strategy, business owners themselves are constantly being sold to. The message seems to be that if you're not doing x, y, or z, and making x amount of dollars, then you're not doing it right. It's not always easy or even possible to distinguish in this kind of constant, ambient environment what's true FOR YOU. So my biggest accomplishment is coming back, again and again, to the truth of my values, my goals, my gifts, and my mission. And running my business from there.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

I have personally found entrepreneurship to be a spiritual path. It asks me to show up every single day and be honest with myself about what's holding me back, what has me playing small, what I'm most afraid of. If I can't ask myself those questions, if I can't answer honestly, the inevitable result is a wrong turn, an unaligned decision, a limiting behaviour, or a straight-up flop. This aspect of the business was a complete surprise! In my experience, it is the hardest thing about running a business and also the most rewarding.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Envision what you really want this business to make possible for you, and reverse engineer from there what you need it to provide you in terms of resources: money, time, energy. (Because yes, you may LOVE your job, but it's a J.O.B. Don't be a martyr to your work. Take it from someone who did just that for five years.)
  2. Charge twice what you think you're worth, right off the bat. Only make exceptions for incredible opportunities that will further you in other ways.
  3. Step 2 will likely trigger the f**** out of you (cause you to spin into all kinds of panic). Instead of backing down, do the work to feel WORTHY of the money you're asking for—and if you're struggling to do that for yourself, that's what coaches are for! ♡ REPEAT.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.juniperediting.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/juniperediting
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/junipercoaching/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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