Lessons Learned from My 1st Book
My first book: You Are Not Alone. I can’t say I am fully proud of it.
There are positive and negative lessons learned from this experience. Here are the key lessons:
Don’t ever depend on yourself to publish, distribute and sell your book. Let the publishers and agents do the job for you.
Don’t be the only financial provider to fund and publish your book. Get sponsorship and funding from other sources as well.
Your 1st book is not a failure. It was an experience where you learned the positives and negatives. Keep writing and continue your personal craft.
Failing is not end of the way. It is just the beginning. If you are not failing, that means you are in the comfort zone and you need to do something different out of your routine.
Create content (online or offline) to build a reputation/word of mouth around your book.
If English is your preferred language in writing, just focus there.
Don’t take writing or your book personally. It doesn’t define you. It doesn’t state who you are. It is just a book you published.
Give up the identity of proving yourself. There is nothing you need to prove. Just be yourself and do your craft.
Stop blaming yourself or criticizing. Writing, publishing are not the only thing in your life. You have got a whole life with family, kids, a new home and other day to day tasks to complete as well.
Don’t give anyone a promise you can’t make.
You need to go out of your way. Thinking you gotta do it all. Worrying what people would say. Avoiding rejection. Fearing failure. All these are copying mechanisms to protect yourself from harm. Be aware of them and don’t let them make the decisions or choose the choices for you.