What if the book you never planned to write became the business you were always meant to build?Cathy Derksen didn’t grow up wanting to be an author. She wasn’t a writer. She’s dyslexic. Books weren’t even on her radar, let alone publishing them. But somewhere between a divorce, a career change, two teenagers, and a quiet voice she couldn’t ignore — she ended up in a book. Then another. Then she started making them herself.Today Cathy has contributed to twenty-four anthologies and created ten multi-author books of her own, giving over two hundred people the chance to become published authors for the first time.In this conversation, she shares how it all started, what it really takes to coordinate a book with twenty authors from around the world, and why the multi-author model might be the most underrated visibility tool in a creative entrepreneur’s toolkit.HighlightsThe calling doesn’t always make sense. Listen anyway.Cathy’s first chapter wasn’t planned. It wasn’t strategic. There was a book being put together called Emotional Intelligence, Mental Health Matters and something in her just knew her story had to be in it. She’d just come through a divorce, a complete career change, and the chaos of raising two teenagers through all of it. The dust was barely settling.“There was just, I describe it like almost like a calling. There was this feeling in me that my story had to be in that book. I wasn’t allowed to say no to whatever this message was inside me.”She thought it would be a one-time thing. That was her twenty-fourth book ago.Not every next step comes with a clear plan or a logical reason. Sometimes it just comes with a feeling you can’t shake. The question isn’t whether it makes sense. The question is whether you’re willing to listen.You don’t have to write the whole book. You just have to write your chapter.One of the biggest lies the publishing world tells creative entrepreneurs is that becoming an author means writing eighty thousand words alone in a room until something coherent comes out. Cathy’s model dismantles that completely.“I don’t forget though, my books are all multi-author books. So I’m only writing one chapter.”One chapter. One story. One slice of your expertise, your journey, your perspective wrapped inside a book with nineteen other voices all pointing toward the same theme.Your story is a sample of your work. Treat it like one.Cathy is deliberate about how she coaches her authors to write their chapters. It’s never just a personal essay. It’s always a combination: your journey, what you learned, and the tools or strategies that can help the reader move forward too.“Someone reads the chapter, now they feel like they’re connected with you. They feel like they understand more about what you do, why you’re doing it. And then you’ve got that part where you’re giving your tips and strategies, which really is kind of a sample of what you do in your business.”The reader sees themselves in your story. They trust you because they know you. And then they get a taste of what it’s like to work with you. The chapter does the work quietly, and the right people follow.The book creates a deadline. The deadline creates momentum.One of the most unexpected things Cathy sees happen with her authors is what the book unlocks beyond the writing itself. Suddenly there’s a launch date. A real one. And everything that’s been sitting on the back burner, the website, the LinkedIn profile, the social media cleanup, has to happen now.“There’s a deadline… I need to get my website done. I need to get my social media stuff cleaned up and set up. So suddenly there’s this motivation to get all those things together. And so really what it’s done for their business is that it has accelerated and amplified everything that they were doing.”A project in motion moves differently than the one that’s always “almost ready.” The book doesn’t just give you a chapter. It gives you a reason to show up fully and a deadline to complete it.Twenty authors means twenty networks. All pushing towards the same goal.The visibility math on a multi-author book is something most people don’t think about until they’re inside it. When twenty people from around the world are all promoting the same book at the same time, something happens that no solo launch can replicate.“You’ve got 20 communities that are now connecting and overlapping and collaborating and tagging and liking and sharing. And so it really does become a wave of activity.”Cathy’s books have hit international number one bestseller status on Amazon — not because of a massive ad budget, but because of twenty people with twenty communities all riding the same wave at the same time. The key, she says, is being ready when that wave comes. Your website, your profile, your offer all need to be in place before the launch, not after.Imposter syndrome shrinks when you’re not doing it alone.Cathy is honest about what holds most people back from writing their book. It’s not time. It’s not skill. It’s the quiet voice that says who am I to think anyone wants to hear what I have to say.“For most people, imposter syndrome is one of the big things holding them back. And so when you get started by participating in a multi-author book, now you’re working with a group of people. So you’re all going through that together.”There’s something about doing a hard thing alongside other people that makes the hard thing smaller. You’re not the only one writing your first chapter. You’re not the only one scared of what people will think. And when the book comes out and someone you’ve never met tells you your story changed something for them, that’s the moment the imposter loses a little ground.What becomes possible changes everything.Cathy’s favorite story from her books is about a woman in her seventies who had spent her whole life feeling like an outsider. Too spiritual. Too different. Too much. She did one chapter in Cathy’s first book and got such a response that she couldn’t stop.“In the three years since that first book was published, she has done two books with me, completed two solo books, and she started a YouTube channel. She went from someone who is just living like… she couldn’t tell anyone what she was really wanting to do — to someone who is now a four times bestselling author.”That’s not a publishing story. That’s a permission story. And Cathy builds those, one book at a time.Closing ReflectionCathy didn’t plan any of this. Not the first chapter, not the ten books she’s created, not the two hundred authors she’s helped become published for the first time. She just kept listening to the voice that said keep going and built something real around it.Her work is proof that you don’t need to write the whole book. You don’t need to have it all figured out. You just need one chapter, one story, and the willingness to say yes to the thing that keeps calling your name.If you’re an author with a story worth sharing, leave a comment and tell us about your work. You deserve the spotlight too.