After much procrastination, I am finally ready with my second book. Or am I? Well, a couple of chapter edits are still pending and I am still rewording, rephrasing, adding more content and context. But yeah, I am mostly getting there.
Like I had mentioned before, the book is coming out this month. I was a little conflicted about the date because I will be going home for 10 days later this month and will not have much access to computer. I want to hit the Publish button before I leave so that I have enough time to promote the book.
This book was my first tryst with non-fiction. It is also enormously personal. I will be doing a couple of blog posts about the entire journey of the second book. But today, I want to empty myself and let you know how it feels to be on the verge of self-publishing a book.
The long, long rounds of edits!
As a creative person, a writer tries and tries to make each sentence as close to perfection as she can.I published my first book in sort of a hurry. I was in college and just wanted the taste of being published. I have missed my fair share of edit for Bound by Life. But this time, I am more mature.The fact that I am a working professional now helped a lot because now I started to think of the book as a deliverable. I am as careful with this book now as I am with a client deliverable.
Even though the edit rounds are excruciatingly painful at times, this is the best phase of the writing for me. I generally write free form, filling the pages as the words come to me. So unless I do thorough edit afterwards, there are inconsistencies. There have been so many times when I have copied and pasted entire paragraphs in a different place in the chapter because it did not sound right at its previous position.
The frantic search for marketing techniques
Marketing a book is not easy. Especially if you are a nobody in the writing world and are trying to self-publish your book. I spent a good part of December reading about marketing strategies.
For a while, I was thinking of creating a book trailer. But times seems to be flying at jet speed these days. It was just new year and now it is February. I realized that I better focus on making the book the best one I can. I am the sort of a person who believes greatly in word-of-mouth promotion. If the book is good enough, it will sell itself.
The guilty not-writing phases
For a couple of weeks in January, I was so hooked into the TV shows that I did no work whatsoever for the book, all the while knowing that it would bite me later. Even though I am still on for a February release, but sadly as the book is not completely done yet, I am having to cut on time for promotional stuff (yeah, I know! Word-of-mouth is great, but I guess you still need to reach some people for word-of-mouth recommendations to get generated). I won’t say I am really sorry I spent January like that. Writing is a very lonely occupation. You really need the distraction to get work done.
I think of writing like cooking. You need to cook the veggies for the right amount of time to taste the best. There is an incubation period. This holds true especially in my case for this book. It is on fear and draws heavily from my personal experience – so my personal growth is intricately related to the completion of this book. You will know this as soon as you read the book.
Enough said. Now, it is time for the big cover reveal. Drum-rolls please!
Presenting, the face of my next book:
Book Cover
There! One milestone accomplished. Now I can go cook lunch for myself and eat!
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Scribbles@Arpita 