VanderWyk & Burnham (V&B) is the name of the tradebook publishing company I founded in 1994 and sold in 2009. Its mission statement was to publish books that promote learning, compassion, and self-reliance and make a difference in people’s lives. During the three or so months of negotiations with Angie Quick, the person who would, in fact, be the next owner of the company, I worked through a broker.
I knew I couldn’t worry too much about whether Ms. Quick was a good person or not. I thought she probably was, given the books in the company she was already shepherding, and given the types of books in V&B’s own list. But I couldn’t vouch for her personally as I would have liked to, to reassure the authors they would still be in good hands after the sale. All I knew during the pre-sale days was that she was smart; she was asking all the right questions.
After the sale and over the next few months of transitioning, I still never met Angie. Now, over two years later, we met this past Saturday. She was in a nearby town on the tail-end of a family vacation, and I knew this because she and I had become Facebook friends on the heels of the sale. When you are FB friends you get to learn a lot about each other just by seeing what each is posting, what the other’s other friends are posting, and so on. We know things about each other we don’t even know the other one knows. That’s how it works.
So, I learned when/where she would be and got in touch with her to see if we might have a chance to meet face to face. We worked it out. My husband was with me for the meeting, since he, too, had a reason to want to meet Angie (a different story!). The three of us met for breakfast, and now I, for one, feel like I really have made a new friend. We bonded over business management, book publishing, photography, and family love. I continue to be amazed at the power of social networking to bring people together in new ways.
Visit http://www.VandB.com and http://www.QuickPublishing.com.
