Meet Neal Papevies | Children’s book author, Business professional, Outdoor enthusiast.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Neal Papevies and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Neal, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
Countless times I’ve been in mentoring/leadership groups listening to retired but very successful business men talking about how if they could change anything they would have been more present at home with their families. I’m doing my best to learn from their experience.

Being the father of two amazing girls has had a profound impact on how I prioritize my life. First and foremost, I want to make sure I am here for my family. Certainly I want to provide a life for them financially, but I really want to make sure that I am present and available for them daily. We don’t get many dress rehearsals in life, so if I get anything right I want to make sure its the parenting part.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I have always been a competitive individual. I guess this drive started early on with sports and only grew from there. When I was 7, I signed up for my first triathlon and somehow ended up winning that race and when they put that medal around my neck, I was hooked. For the next 10 years, most of my weekends were spent racing all over, including internationally. In fact, to this day my go-to icebreaker is telling people that my life peaked at age 7 when I won the national championship for the Ironkids Bread triathlon series.

My competitive drive hasn’t changed much over the years, I just have had to find different outlets to scratch that itch, including business. My entire working career, I’ve been in some sort of business development and/or sales role. This was somewhat expected as I grew up working furniture markets in
my dad’s showrooms at a very young age. Currently, I’m an SVP at a large insurance brokerage firm, Brown & Brown Risk Solutions. Here I work with large private and publicly traded companies on restructuring sophisticated risk management programs. However, last year I started to explore a passion project of mine and published my first children’s book, The Little Newt Under The Root.

As I mentioned earlier, I have two amazing little girls, Parker and Blakely, and they are at a stage where they love to read books. After reading countless books a night at bedtime for the last 4 years, I decided to give it a go and attempt my own children’s book. To say that I’ve learned a lot throughout this process is an understatement. When I originally wrote the book, I never had any intentions of publishing it. I figured that I would read it to my girls and some family members and that would be that. It wasn’t until my family pushed me to look into publishing that I started to explore the process.

After several meetings with published authors, I was pretty turned off, to the whole idea. There are definitely some perceived barriers to entry. I didn’t have an agent, I didn’t know any publishers, writing wasn’t my primary occupation, and I didn’t really want to, nor did I know how to self-publish. So, the book just sat there. It wasn’t until about a year later that I was introduced to, Beverly, at an event, and she just happened to be a children’s book author. We started
talking about my book and if I’d be interested in publishing it. The following week I sent her a draft with the understanding that she would give me real constructive feedback and most likely tell me it was a nice exercise but probably not publishing material. However, about 30 minutes after sending her the draft she called asking if she could connect me with an illustrator and publisher.

I met with the illustrator, Stacy, and we hit it off almost instantly. Not only was she unbelievably talented, but I just knew she would be able to bring this story to life in a way that would capture the young readers. Over the next couple of months, Stacy and I worked closely hand-selecting every character in the
book. I even created a Pinterest board of all the animals I’d like to see illustrated. Even though the target audience would be young kids, I wanted to make sure it was an accurate representation of what readers could find in the woods living together, especially around the southeast. All the animals needed to be from the same habitat. The other part that was very important to me was that all the animals expressed emotion to engage the readers. Throughout the story, the animals experience emotions from happy, to sad, to scared, to relief, and eventually thankful and happy again. I felt that it was important to capture these various emotions in the facial expressions of the characters. Some of the readers may be too young to understand the story, but they can understand pictures and emotions. Stacy took the challenge and exceeded all my expectations.

At this stage, I was pretty naive in how much effort actually went into preparing a book to be published. I bet I rewrote the book a dozen times, meticulously selecting every word. Reading the book out loud with Beverly and Stacy making sure it flowed. I even had random friends and family read the book and provide constructive feedback. It’s hard not to become emotionally attached and somewhat defensive during this critical process. I had to quickly learn that we all had the same goal and to trust those providing their feedback only wanted what was best for the book.

At the end of the day, once this book went to print, there was no turning back. My name would forever be publicly attached to The Little Newt Under The Root. I remember anxiously driving two hours away just to hold one of the first copies of my book. It’s hard to describe that feeling, but it made everything that led to that exact moment worth it. Honestly, at that point, I didn’t care if I ever sold a copy, to me, I had created something tangible that I could bring home to my children and hopefully someday show my grandchildren.

Once the book was published and available, I never really expected it to go anywhere. In fact, up until that point I had pretty much kept it a secret from my network. Let’s be honest, I don’t fit the typical children’s book author profile, and I wasn’t sure how my friends and colleagues would react. I certainly wasn’t prepared to handle the feeling if the book flopped. Looking back now, I guess I should have trusted that I had surrounded myself with a strong and supportive network.

I remember as the first few orders started coming in through the website, I quickly realized I had no idea what I was doing. Let’s just say I gave myself a crash course in launching, promoting, packaging, and shipping books all while trying to maintain a steady inventory. There were countless nights over those first couple of months when I would sit at our kitchen table, signing and boxing books until 2-3 in the morning. I loved every second. It was
humbling to see just how supportive and willing to purchase multiple copies everyone was. After the first couple of weeks, I even started receiving fan mail from a lot of the young readers, which continues to this day and I hope never slows down.

Since the book launch in October of 2022, not only have I been fortunate to sell thousands of copies, but I’ve been lucky to travel to dozens of schools, bookstores, book fairs, and markets for in-person readings and signings introducing young readers to The Little Newt. I’ve even had several opportunities to work with young aspiring writers and high school students through various writing workshops, and have formed a couple of children’s book author groups. I’m currently working on several more books and hope to have the next one published soon. Although I don’t think the second book gets any easier, in fact, it may be harder now that there are expectations involved. However, I can say that it’s been an amazing journey, and I am beyond grateful for the support and all of my readers.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
My wife and I just moved outside the city, so on a nice day we’d start with a coffee from Whitetail Coffee in Milton and then head over to a spot on the Chattahoochee River to let our two labs go for a swim and hike along some of the trails. For lunch, we would probably head over to one of the Superica locations followed by some time walking along the Beltline, unless this person liked to play golf, in which case I would most likely be on the golf course. For dinner, I’d either grill something at the house or head out to Umi for some amazing sushi.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I certainly want to dedicate this shoutout to my family. Without the support of my loving wife and two girls, I don’t know where I’d be in life. They serve as constant motivation to try and become the best person that I can be by bettering myself a little each day.

I also would be remiss if I didn’t mention my parents. I was very fortunate to grow up in a household with two loving parents who sacrificed a lot to provide for my sister and me. Without their dedication to instilling a strong foundation in in us and their unwavering support, I wouldn’t be here in this interview today.

Website: https://www.pbinspirations.com/

Instagram: p.b.inspirations

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PBInspiration

Image Credits
Clay Goswick