The Collaboration Illusion: Why Working Together Sucks-And How to Fix It: Received a 4+ star review, making it an IndieReader Approved title.
The Collaboration Illusion: Why Working Together Sucks-And How to Fix It: Received a 4+ star review, making it an IndieReader Approved title.Following find an interview with authors Anca Castillo and Cary Lopez:
1. What is the name of the book and when was it published?
The Collaboration Illusion: Why Working Together Sucks-And How to Fix It. Published December 17th, 2025.
2. What’s the book’s first line?
Standing at the front of the conference room, Tim wondered-for the third time that week-why on earth he had taken this job.
3. What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
The book is about collaboration: how it shows up, why it is so important (now more than ever), why it sucks and feels impossible sometimes, and what to do about it. And because we love fiction novels and hate business books, we wanted to incorporate storytelling. Woven throughout the book is the tale of Tim, a good-intentioned but wildly mistaken leader who is trying his hardest to help his team get along. Tim experiences the lessons from the book as we share them, helping the reader “see” what good collaboration “looks like” in action.
4. What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
We were inspired to write this book by many different people in our lives telling us to write a book. As professional facilitators and workshop designers, we have many different tales of collaboration failures, lessons, and transformations that we would share at conferences, keynotes, and workshops. So we decided to put all those learnings together in this book, in the hope that readers would find them both entertaining and insightful. And to answer the most important question, “Is Tim based on a real person?” The answer is Yes and No. Tim is not just one real person; Tim is a compilation of a many real people we have encountered and worked with over the years.
5. What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
For most of us, collaboration has been thrown at us with no guidebook or best practices; just a “figure it out on your own” mindset. And that has left most of us with a sour taste in our mouth when it comes to collaborating with others. But the truth is, we need to collaborate now more than ever! So the real question is: why not learn how to do it and do it well?
6. What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?
The main character of the fiction portion of our book (Tim) is inspired by a few different people we have met with and worked with in real life. And when we were writing about him and bringing him to life, we kept thinking back to Tim “The Toolman” Taylor from the 90’s show Home Improvement. He was a dopy well-intentioned guy that kept messing up in the most blundersome of ways and would go to his neighbor Wilson for help and advice.
7. When did you first decide to become an author?
It has always been a goal and dream of ours to write a book and become published authors. So, in January of 2025 when we were setting intentions and goals for the year, we looked at each other and said “let’s do it this year” and we did!
8. Is this the first book you’ve written?
Yes, this is the first book we have officially written. We have written a few different guidebooks and training books, and Cary wrote her dissertation for her doctoral degree, but this is the first official popular-press book.
9. What do you do for work when you’re not writing?
We own a human-centered strategy and consulting firm in Phoenix, Arizona called DesignConvo LLC. We primarily help people do what we teach in the book – collaborate and work well together.
10. How much time do you generally spend on your writing?
We spend about 50% of our time writing proposals, reports, articles and posts. As far as writing books, about 0% of our time is spent on that in our daily lives. We wrote this book in a week (and then many, many hours of editing, refining, formatting, etc.).
11. What’s the best and the hardest part of being an indie?
Trying to get our book out into the world and into the hands of as many people as possible to hopefully have an impact on the way everyone works together.
12. What’s a great piece of advice that you can share with fellow indie authors?
We would say that the whole process of writing and publishing was surprisingly easier than expected! The hard part is marketing and getting the word out there. Don’t let fear (fear of the unknown, imposter syndrome…whatever the fear might be based on) get in the way. JUST WRITE.
13. Would you go traditional if a publisher came calling? If so, why?
Yes, we would, because we just want to get this into the hands of as many as people as possible. We’re not in this for financial gain or fame, but because we see collaboration as something that is fundamentally missing in our education as human beings and we hope that this book can start to fill that gap and make a positive impact on the world. Because the world needs collaboration!
14. Is there something in particular that motivates you (fame? fortune?)
We love to think of ourselves as positive disruptors and rule breakers, so our biggest motivation is doing anything and everything that goes against the grain and makes a good impact on the world. We know that can sound cheesy, but it is true. Positive deviance is what we like to call it.
15. Which writer, living or dead, do you most admire?
We are both HUGE fiction readers. I mean like multiple books a week! So it is hard to pick any one writer. A few of our favorite authors are: Jane Austen, Kate Quinn, Rebecca Yarros, Casey Blair, Kristin Hannah, Brene Brown, and Adam Grant.
16. Which book do you wish you could have written?
We don’t have book we wish we could have written but we do have books that we wish we could write! We have a few different ideas, both business and fiction, that we are playing with and our dream is to be able to bring them to life like we did with this book.