Failing Forward: A Mum’s Honest Confession from Behind the Scenes of a Book Launch

In the lead-up to the print release of You Can’t Rush Friendships through IngramSpark, I made what felt like a smart decision. I updated the publication date to 12 August to give us time to review proof copies and make any final tweaks. It felt careful, thoughtful, and aligned with our perfectionist hopes of getting everything just right.

What I didn’t know was that this small change would temporarily remove the book from sale on Amazon, where it had already been available for almost two months. With our book launch just days away, suddenly it wasn’t available for readers to purchase, or for me to order additional stock.

As soon as I saw what had happened, I felt physically sick. The kind of stomach-dropping, breath-holding panic that keeps you up all night. I cried. I felt ashamed. I couldn’t bring myself to tell Nat straight away.

This is their debut as a neurodivergent author and illustrator. Their moment. And I felt like I had ruined it.

At 4 a.m., I lay awake in tears, silently reciting all the ways I had failed — the families planning to buy a copy, the people who believed in us, and most of all, my child. Then I remembered something shared by life coach Ingrid Kent: “If you can change it, why worry; If you can’t change it, why worry.” It’s hard advice to live by, but in that moment, it helped me breathe.

In the morning, I was honest and gently told Nat what had happened and then braced myself for disappointment.

Instead, they looked at me and said calmly, “That’s alright, Mum. I’ll just tell everyone at school it’s a pre-order now.”

No blame. No shame. Just perspective.

In that moment, something inside me softened. Nat’s response reminded me that they’ve been listening all these years. We’ve talked often about flexibility, empathy, and taking ownership when things go wrong. Now I could see those values reflected right back at me, and I learned something from them.

It also brought to mind an article I read by Heidi Prowse, a fellow author we met at the ANU Psychology Fair. In Build the Plane While Flying It: Why Good Boards Don’t Wait for Perfect, she wrote about courageously moving forward despite the unknown. That’s exactly what we’ve been doing with Zosimos Curra. No blueprint. No safety net. Just an idea and a mission to uplift young minds with inclusive, imaginative stories.

We’ve been learning as we go, pivoting when needed, and trusting that the engine will hold.

The truth is, I’m exhausted. I’m juggling full-time work, co-running a creative startup, and parenting with my whole heart. There’s no manual for how to do this, just a million small decisions that add up to something meaningful. This one just happened to be the wrong call.

And still, we keep going.

The lesson? We can recover from mistakes, and we can do it with grace.

Nat’s generosity gave me the courage to own the situation, apologise, and refocus. So here’s the updated plan:

📚 Our book is now available for pre-order, and all orders will ship after 12 August.

🎉 We’ll still have limited stock available at the launch, and we’d love for you to join us.

💛 To everyone who was hoping to read it sooner, thank you for your patience.

🌱 And to my child, who responded with empathy and light when I needed it most, thank you for showing me how far we’ve come.

If you're building something from the ground up, please know this:

It’s OK to mess up. What matters most is how we respond when we do.

Choose honesty. Choose compassion. And most of all, choose to keep going.

💛 With gratitude, a few tears, and deep pride in this journey.

Debi 🧡📚🌱

(Mum and Co-Founder Zosimos Curra)