Less than two weeks ago, everything fell apart.

Lori and I were tired. We’d just spent countless hours preparing the pre-order campaign for our upcoming book, Infinite Purpose: Care Instructions for Your True Calling. And something didn’t feel right.

Back in January, when we decided to self-publish through Wise Ink, we knew it was a huge financial risk. We’d have to raise funds through pre-orders to help cover the cost of mass-printing this book; an 8×10 full-color, hardcover with nearly 200 vivid pages of divine guidance and gorgeous artwork. So we’d signed on with PubSlush, which specializes in crowdfunding for indie authors, and we diligently worked on our campaign materials – from shooting a short film about the book to creating “perks” for those who support the campaign.

But in the week leading up to our pre-order launch, we kept encountering speed bumps. We had a feeling something was up, but we were so eager to kickoff the campaign that we ignored all the little signs. We sent the link early to a bunch of friends, asking them to check it out and to start sharing the campaign with others on Wednesday. Many of them placed early orders, which was fantastic – but also revealed more glitches in the system. Ack! That Wednesday morning, we had to delay the launch by several hours while we waited to hear from PubSlush. With each passing hour, we grew more anxious. We were too blinded by worry to see that the universe was purposefully and lovingly running interference.

I decided to step away from the laptop and check in with Spirit, who encouraged me to be patient (not really what you want to hear when things are falling apart). We would launch, Spirit said, “when the sun meets the moon.” Completely baffled by this, I figured I was so stressed that I wasn’t hearing them correctly. So I dismissed their guidance.

And then the shitty-shit-shit hit the fan.

INFINITE PURPOSE: Care Instructions for Your True Calling by LIv Lane & Lori PortkaLori called and asked if I was sitting down. I braced myself. “The glitches don’t even matter,” she told me. “PubSlush is going to shut down and we have to get out ASAP.” For a good 30 seconds, we muttered every effing swear word that exists. And then we sprang into action.

We didn’t have any more time for sulking, for swearing, for wondering why. We had people to contact and refund. We had to keep folks from sharing the link on social media. We had to find a filmmaker to edit PubSlush out of our short film. We had to re-think our financials. And we had to move all of our content over to crowdfunding site INDIEGOGO. Running on sheer adrenaline, we did it all in less than 24 hours – and then we didn’t know what to do.

We were so tired, we had no energy to officially launch and explain the new pre-order campaign to people. We weren’t even sure we’d gain any traction on such a big crowdfunding site. We went around in circles; should we launch the next day? the next week? or just go into hibernation and launch the book in 2016? With no clear answer, we sat on the phone saying almost nothing to each other. We were that fried.

And then I remembered that weird guidance from Spirit: to move forward “when the sun meets the moon.” Praying it might offer us some clarity, I googled it – and my eyes just about popped right out of my head. I read aloud to Lori as I scrolled through the first site that grabbed my attention. It said there was going to be a new moon the next day – Friday, August 14th – and that this would be a time when “the sun and moon rise together, the sun and moon set together, the sun and moon cross in the sky.” 


We both gasped in awe. 

We immediately looked up the astrological implications of that particular new moon and were wowed by the insight from Mystic Mamma: “A roaring New Moon in Leo is upon us, sparking creativity and originality and igniting our passions with soul aligned purpose.” 

Whoa!! It all made sense. Our timing was not aligned with God’s timing. We had plowed forward despite a bunch of glitches, despite all the delays, until the universe finally stopped us in our tracks and forced us to take a detour. By the time we’d moved everything over to INDIEGOGO, we had to wait until Friday to launch. Online marketers say Fridays are awful days to introduce a new iniatiative, but we didn’t care; it suddenly felt like the perfect day to us!

And, indeed, it totally was. The sun and moon danced, and the campaign kicked off with such a bang that we were trending on the homepage throughout that day! Meanwhile, PubSlush got happy news, too; as they prepared to shut down, they were acquired by another company. We all went from holy crap to holy wow in a matter of days.

Looking back, we realize that when it felt like everything was falling apart, everything was actually working in our favor, for the highest good of all. Once we trusted this, our energy levels shifted and we went from feeling totally fried to fired up.

Now, with a week and a half to go, we’re over halfway to our funding goal and totally delighting in every single pre-order that comes through and in a state of wonder over the divine orchestration of it all. Want to join the magic? You’re right on time.

(Reprinted from Liv’s blog. The campaign ended in early September, but you can still order your book here)