So You've Written A Book, Now What?

Browsing through the Internet, you find samples of every kind of writing imaginable, and all types of writers. Freelancers, copywriters, people creating content for everything imaginable.

Then you have the bloggers... There seems to be a common thread with bloggers and blogging. Any blogger who has been writing for any amount of time seems to a catch a bug. That bug, is the writing bug. They all seem to think that since they have been able to successfully publish post after post, maybe it's time to write that book.

There is a problem with that type of thinking, and we can't blame it solely on the bloggers. That type of thinking has been brought on by so called self publishing gurus!

Yes folks, the online gurus, those noble purveyors of verbal diarrhea that so many people fall victim to. Then, you can't blame the ordinary blogger, after all, from the very start they were told there was money to be made from blogging... only so many of them never made a cent.

So now along comes a 'guru", an "expert" who tells them it is easy to put together simple books and publish them yourself, and you will soon be swimming through your money like Scrooge McDuck!. They are certain you can do it, because, after all, they have. For a "small fee" they can give away their secret sauce that will make you a self published success!

Several months ago, I sat down at my laptop and created my first book. I'd never written a book before, never thought I could. After writing for a few days, i was thinking to myself, damn, I get this finished, maybe I can retire comfortably, fill up that beer fridge I want to buy, and play Facebook games all day!

After all, that guru told me it was easy, just write, publish, promote, and watch your bank account fill up. So I kept writing, and writing, and the words just kept coming, and I kept typing, and I was getting so excited. I now considered myself as an author.

It was a natural fit, after all, I love to write. I was crossing all the "T's" and dotting all the "I's", heck, I was even using a spellchecker and a grammar checker. Besides, I had several years of blogging experience, so that should qualify me, right?

Several weeks later I had thrown together my book. I was so proud, just like the father of a newborn. I was telling all my online friends, and they were virtually patting me on the back. I called a few friends, they were happy, and then I made a mistake.

The book I'd written was about a year my wife and I had moved from one province in Canada, to another province. I've often referred to it as the best year of my life, and the worst year of my life. The worst being I wasn't able to find good paying work, and the best, because of all the wonderful new friends I'd made. So when I finished my book, I'd sent a copy to one of those friends.

I wanted their opinion on the book, before I went any further. After all, all those new friends were somewhere in that book. All their little quirks, their flaws, their mannerisms, and even habits, good or bad. All things that identified them, as them!

So I sent my book and patiently waited for them to read it, knowing full well they were going to just love it, and would want a signed copy, with some little saying written on the inside of the front cover.

Finally, after a week of waiting, my dear friend had sent the reply to my email which I was waiting for... Well, it wasn't good news, basically I was told that should I ever step foot in that province again, there was a chance they would use me as target practice, a few people had threatened to kill me if I should publish it, and some laughed it off and said it was a book of lies, though I can assure you it wasn't. There were a few, although not happy with what I'd written, said overall, it was well written.

I then had the great idea of changing all the real peoples names in the book. So I asked my friend if that would make everyone happy. Nope, too late for that, they'd all know you were talking about them.

So I'd had this great idea to write a book, took the time to write it, and now nobody wanted me to have it published. What was I going to do now?

Well I decided to create a PDF of my book, download a plugin for my website, and create a Flip Book! So that was what I did. I created a page on my site called My Book, and there is where it sat... for about a week.

I'd dropped links to my book here and there, hoping someone would read my book, and according to Google Analytics, it was read "zero" times. Of course I was discouraged, so I deleted my page, "My Book" removed the flip Book plugin, and wrote it off as a loss.

Well the book idea didn't work out, but I've put that all behind me. Maybe some day I will write that next best seller, but for now I'm just going to continue boring people with blog posts and hastily written articles.

As to my book, it sits on a flash drive now, with other files and programs that will probably never see the light of day again, but the memories of those written words sit in my head, and my heart.

I do love to write, I was inspired by great high school teacher, who gave me encouragement, and told me to follow my dreams. I have, to a certain extent, and if he were around today, I think maybe he would be proud of what I have accomplished.

Maybe I'll write a book about that someday...