Meet Dede Stockton of DreamMaker Books LLC and A Virtual World LLC in Centennial

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dede Stockton.

Dede, before we jump into specific questions about your company, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My story started with me being an Air Force brat and living all over the world! I am sure that I have gotten to see many places that most people don’t even dream about! I was even born in North Africa and was fortunate enough to be able to visit there again when I was ten years old as we lived in Naples, Italy at the time and it was a very short distance across the Mediterranean Sea!

All the places we lived overseas were on the ocean, or even on an island, as I spent three years on the island of Okinawa. I always imagined what life under the sea would be like and what kind of unimaginable creatures might be lurking there! It was a huge fascination of mine and, as an only child, I always hoped that I could make friends with the creatures of the sea!

Fast forward to my dad retiring from the Air Force and us moving to landlocked Colorado! No more dreams of ocean creatures as I seldom got to see the ocean anymore!

Eventually, I had two children to whom I read bedtime stories every night. At some point along the way, my daughter asked me to tell them stories rather than reading them stories. I had a few brief moments of panic as I struggled to figure out what kind of stories I could tell! And then it all came back to me! My dreams of making friends with undersea creatures. So, I began to tell them stories about a little red-headed, only child who makes friends with a sea monster.

Years went by and we moved to several other states, none near the ocean, and eventually found our way back to Colorado. By this time my children were both in high school and I needed to find something to do with my time, so I start a virtual administration business.

I work from home, in my jammies, and do administrative type work for clients all over the country. I learned a lot during my first few years and eventually had a large enough clientele to warrant the need for others to help me and I began adding on sub-contractors to work with me on my client needs. I have now been doing this for seven years and love being able to work from home, setting my own hours and working my own schedule.

So, when my daughter suggested that I begin to write the stories that I used to tell them about Sammi Jo and the sea monster, I jumped at the chance. Not without misgivings, of course, as I seriously doubted, I could make it happen. However, as I tell the students I speak to at schools, if you can imagine it, you can make it happen! Of course, it took a bit of prompting and after receiving multiple reminders from my daughter about the famous people who had to try, repeatedly before they became successful, I gulped and began writing my first Sammi Jo book!

It’s kind of funny how books and writing can take on a life of their own and as I was writing the first book, I discovered how Sammi Jo called every day the BEST day EVER! Hence, the title of the first book in the series, Sammi Jo and the Best Day Ever! That then became a theme and that first book was followed with Sammi Jo and the Best Rodeo Ever, Sammi Jo and the Best Adventure Ever and Sammi Jo and the Best Christmas Ever! Children seem to love the books full of magical, mystical creatures and I can’t wait to get started on book five!

I took a small detour this year and decided to write a couple of picture books so that younger children could enjoy some of my stories. I now have ‘What’s That Noise?’, which is the picture book version of how Sammi Jo meets Screech. It is a rhyming story with beautiful illustrations designed to hold the interest of a young child. I also teamed up with a friend to write a picture book about a REAL horse and a REAL goat that live in Colorado. This book is called ‘Scratches: My New Life!’ The horse is a rescue horse and the goat is the friend they got to keep the horse happy. Although the stories are very loosely based on real facts, it is a fun story for children and the book even includes real-life pictures of the characters in the story!

I look forward to continuing both journeys and building Sammi Jo’s adventures and my virtual administration business., because, as we all know, if you give up too soon, you’ll never know what you’ll be missing!

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
There are always struggles in life and our paths are always under construction, but where would we be without these struggles. One of the biggest struggles I have faced with my books is when my publishing company went out of business after I had already published two books with them. This meant starting over as all I owned was my words. I had to have all the illustrations, cover designs, and formatting redone so that they were my own. I hired an awesome illustrator, who has illustrated every book and I formed my own publishing company, DreamMaker Books! Now, I own not only my words, but my graphics and my designs.

Tell us about your company. What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of as a company? What sets you apart from others?
DreamMaker Books is my publishing company. I am so proud that I have been able to pull this all together and have such a collection of books already. I believe that my stories regarding making your dreams come true, following your heart and being persistent are an inspiration to children and adults alike. If we all had the courage not to let other people influence our way of thinking, we could all go much further in life.

As far as my virtual administration business, A Virtual World, I believe that I have an amazing team. We all work together well, and we allow other entrepreneurs the ability to free up their time so that they can focus on building their business without having to focus on all the administrative tasks that take up so much of their time. We strive to work with all our clients as their partners in business and help them to build the businesses of their dreams!

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I plan on continuing to build both businesses and continue to write my Sammi Jo books (or maybe choose a new theme at some point)! I have also toyed with the idea of helping other authors publish under the name of DreamMaker Books, but that is still just a dream… What I would really love is for the Sammi Jo Adventure Series to eventually become a movie, cartoon or tv show! You never know … it COULD happen!

Contact Info:

• Address: 5563 S. Uravan Ct., Suite 100
  Centennial, CO 80015
• Website: www.dedestockton.com
• Phone: 623-523-3304
• Email: dede@dedestockton.com
• Instagram: @dedestock and @dreammaker_books
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/avirtualworld/ and https://www.facebook.com/sammijoadventures/
• Twitter: @speakersva and @sammijo
• Other: https://www.amazon.com/Dede-Stockton/e/B00KY0883W?ref_=dbs_p_ebk_r00_abau_000000

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