Recently I ran The Story Sessions, a 5-day experience dedicated to the art (and joy) of storytelling and I wanted to share a debrief with you.
I’m endlessly curious about the behind-the-scenes of other people’s businesses (maybe I should say nosey?!), so I thought you might like a rundown of how The Story Sessions went.
What was the inspiration?
I wasn’t planning to offer anything new in August, but I was inspired by being part of Simone Grace Seol’s Summer Camp. (If you haven’t heard of Simone, she’s the creator of Joyful Marketing and I’m pretty much addicted to her content).
One of the invitations in her online Summer Camp was to create and launch some kind of fun mini-event within two weeks. That felt really playful to me, so I was in!
When I tuned into what to offer, the idea of something around storytelling came through immediately and The Story Sessions was born.
What was the offer?
I wanted The Story Sessions to feel light and playful. It’s the summer holidays here in the Northern Hemisphere; I knew that a lot of my community would be away or spending time with their kids and I’d also decided to have a more spacious calendar in August. So, I didn’t want to create something with a rigid schedule or live calls that people had to make time for.
The Story Sessions experience was a simple 5-day process where each day I’d send an email with a different prompt inviting each participant to write a particular flavour of story. Over the week, we covered origin stories, questioning, turning points, challenge and triumph.
In addition to the daily prompts, I created a storytelling guide with some tips and tricks to make your writing pop and I shared 5 videos of me giving a breakdown of some of the stories I’ve shared over the past few years.
There was also a pop-up Facebook group for those who wanted to access a community space. (I know not everyone is on, or a fan of, Facebook, but it feels like the most easeful and engaged place to host a pop-up group like this).
What was the investment?
I’ve been experimenting with pay-what-you choose in my business and love the way this opens offers up to more people. So it was a no-brainer to offer The Story Sessions on this basis.
The suggested donation was £22/$33 and there was no minimum payment.
What were the numbers?
40 people joined The Story Sessions and 28 joined the pop-up Facebook group.
Most of the people who joined were already part of the Unbound Writing community in some way (29) and I love that. In the online space we’re conditioned to be continually focused on bringing in new people and, of course, I want to be creating connections with new humans. But being of service to my existing community always comes first. So it means a lot when people who’ve already been journeying with me for months or years, as members of the Unbound Writing Mastermind and/or The Unbound Press authors, choose to be part of any new offers I create.
Total revenue for The Story Sessions was £680, so an average of £17 per person which I was super-happy with.
What was the experience like?
A joy!
Tbh when the idea to create something around storytelling dropped in, I doubted whether I could deliver it. Even though I’ve been sharing stories pretty much since the beginning of my business (10+ years ago), have written 3 books and run a publishing company, I wasn’t sure I was ‘expert’ enough. And I’m sharing this with you, as this is the kind of crazy doubt that can bubble up when we’re choosing to do something new.
I’m so glad I moved through it, as The Story Sessions was phenomenal. The energy in the pop-up group was electric and the community was so supportive of each other as they shared their stories.
Here’s some of the feedback I received:
What’s next?
As I mentioned above, The Story Sessions was an off-the-cuff experiment, so it wasn’t part of some big launch. There was no plan to offer anything in particular at the end of the five days. However, I did make it clear that for anyone looking for ongoing support, that’s available in a number of ways. The Unbound Writing Mastermind will be open again in September and I’m always available to have a chat about becoming an author with The Unbound Press.
In my experience, each person chooses their next sep at the perfect time and there’s no rush to corral anyone into a specific offer.
I’ll certainly offer The Story Sessions again though and I can see it becoming an annual summer event.
And I’ve decided to leave the current group open for the rest of August, so if you’d like to join and get access to the daily prompts and storytelling resources (plus the magic of the community!), you can do that over here.
Here’s to sharing your unique and brilliant story!
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