Success Secrets of Enterprising Women: Interview Authors of “Everything I Know About Dating, I Learned Through Surfing”

Hera Hub:  Hello and welcome to Success Secrets of Enterprising Women sponsored by Hera Hub. My name is Felena Hanson and I’m really looking forward to a very unique interview today. We have two guests on the show, two amazing women here in San Diego. We’re really going to focus our interview today on a book that they’re launching.

The book is titled, Everything I Know About Dating, I Learned Through Surfing. The principles are how surfing advice applies to dating. It’s 96 pages of quotes and comical dating stories in an elegantly bound art-style book. And the two authors are Nancy Spooner Bsharah and Tara Brouer.

I’m really excited to hear your story. How did you come up with the idea? Nancy, I’m going to start with you. Walk us through the beginning stages of this concept.

Nancy: I had just gone through a divorce. I was in my early 30’s and a friend of mine invited on an all-girls surf trip to El Salvador where I learned how to surf for the first time. And I came home back to San Diego absolutely addicted to the sport. And the more that I got out there on the water as a single woman and surfing in San Diego, men would give me tips on how to catch a wave and say stuff like you know, “Nancy, have patience. You paddle all around. Don’t take the first wave because you’re tired of waiting. Don’t waste all that energy.” I started thinking, “This sounds like dating advice.” One day I was talking to Tara after a surf session and I told her about this idea I had for a book and girlfriend went crazy. Tara?

Tara:  Yeah. I was actually looking for a personal design project and you know, being the single girl throughout a lot of my 20’s, I have had a lot of personal dating stories and advice to contribute as well as I’m a graphic designer as well as an illustrator so I was looking for a personal design project. So it all just clicked together.

Hera Hub:  I’m so excited to see you doing some book launches this summer and you also have a Kickstarter campaign. If you want to talk a little bit about that but also weave in to that, your words of wisdom as you roll out the distribution and how does that work then if you’re taking possession of those books?

Nancy:  We’ll start off with Kickstarter. Kickstarter itself is a bunch of crowd-funding companies now. But Kickstarter is really for the arts, all the projects that are up on Kickstarter are either selling music albums or video or movie or a film festival or a book or artwork or whatever. And so what you do, you put your product up on Kickstarter. You should make a video explaining who you are and why you need Kickstarter and we need Kickstarter for funding the first round of printing. Printing is very expensive. So what you do, you put your need and your want up there in Kickstarter and you give rewards to anybody who backs you.

Hera Hub:  That’s great. I don’t know if you’ve explored this and I know nothing about it so this is why I’m asking. I see a lot of folks being able to sell via Amazon and actually having them fulfill it. Is that an option at all for you ladies?

Nancy:  It’s a no-brainer for marketing purposes. You’ve got to have your book on Amazon. The downfall about it is that it’s really expensive. So we’re hoping we’ll do a lot of our sales online because that’s going to be more profitable for us or… what’s that?

Tara:  Through our website.

Nancy:  Yeah, through our website. I have a database of 100+ shops along the southern California coast so I’m working with a handful of shops that are happy to bring the book in and you know, buy a few copies off from us and sell it.

Hera Hub: That’s awesome. And then I heard a little bit about a strategic alliance, if you will, with SurfAid? You want to talk about that a little bit?

Nancy:  Yeah absolutely. We are very happy to have partnered up with SurfAid. It’s a non-profit humanitarian organization that focuses on islands in Indonesia. These islands don’t have running water or electricity but it’s a great place to surf. And the surf industry has taken note that there’s a lot of help that’s needed on these small islands that were really hurt by the tsunami. And so they do tsunami relief. They do tsunami education. They do malaria education. They help with getting fresh water. So we’re going to give back because it’s a location in the world that’s very popular for surfing and it takes a lot of money to get there and surf. It’s the least we can do is get back to the community. So part of our proceeds from the book, that’s what we’re going to give back for SurfAid.

Hera Hub: That’s awesome. That sounds great.

Tara: Yeah.

Hera Hub: Well, thanks so much for your time ladies. I really, really apprecaite it.

Tara: Thank you Felena!

Success Secrets of Enterprising Women airs every Thursday at 3 pm Pacific Standard Time at Herahub.com.